BT 

790 



EGENERATIO 



! OAR DM AN. 










u 



REGENERATION 



GEORGE NYE BOARDMAN, 

Professor of Systematic Theology; Chicago Theological 
Seimnary, 



^ARY of CD 






Fleming H. Revell Company, 

NEW YORK: i CHICAGO: 

30 Union Square: East. | 148 and 150 Madison Street, 

Publish eVsS of Evangelical Literature, 



\ \ "ii, ^1 



\ 







Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1891, by 

FLEMING H. REVELI. COMPANY, 

In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. 

All Rights Reserved. 



The Library 
OF Congress 

WASHINGTON 



PREFACE. 



The doctrine of regeneration may be stated 
in few words: God renews the heart of the 
sinner. The method of renewal being unknown 
— *^the wind bloweth where it Hsteth " — 
treatises upon the subject have generally dis- 
cussed theories or described the accompanying 
circumstances without bringing to view, as the 
chief object of attention, the divine regenerat- 
ing act. The aim of the present work is mainly 
to set forth the regeneration itself ; — first, the 
import of the term as it relates to man in his 
fallen state ; secondly, the w^ork of God upon 
the soul. 

Regeneration is the cardinal doctrine in the 
scheme of salvation. It is, indeed, the saving 
act. While it has never been overlooked, the 
difficulty of bringing it under discussion has 
probably been the reason for its being left 
somewhat in the background. Theological 
treatises generally give to this doctrine only 
one-third or one-fourth the space that is given 
to the atonement, and but a small portion of 
this is commonly given to regeneration proper. 

(3) 



PRE FA CE. 



It is not strange that the atonement should be 
accorded a large space, but it should not for a 
moment be forgotten that it is devised for the 
sake of regeneration. The atonement brings 
before us the most impressive view of the divine 
government which we are capable of attaining; 
it throws a strong and clear light on the at- 
tributes of God, and its parts are susceptible 
of an orderly arrangement so as to form a 
plausible theory. It should, however, be always 
borne in mind that it is to be valued, not as a 
scholastic statement, but as a working power. 
And it should be remembered, too, that the 
power of the atonement is effective in our sal- 
vation only as it goes over into, and coalesces 
with, the purpose to regenerate men and make 
them new creatures. The scheme of salvation 
as taught in our churches might have taken a 
somewhat different form if these facts had been 
more impressed upon theologians. The doc- 
trines concerning man's salvation have generally 
been designated the scheme of redemption; yet 
redemption does not include salvation. It 
would be well if the expression, scheme of res- 
toration, were made more familiar, and if the 
atonement were associated in mind with its 
great aim, the new birth. There might have 
been less discussion over the extent of the 
atonement and the order of decrees, if the en- 
tire scheme, man's admission into the family of 



PRE FA CE. 



God, had been more constantly in mind and 
the logical connection of the parts had been in- 
ferred from the final effect. In the present 
treatise the atonement is presupposed, and the 
attempt made to give a simple statement of the 
Bible doctrine of the spirit-birth. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



Preface, 3 

CHAPTER I. 

Every Man Must be Twice Born, . . . 9-22 

The Scriptures Teach this Truth, .... 9 
No Time-Relation Between the First and Second 

Birth, 10 

The Second Birth Not in the Course of Nature,. 11 
The Second Birth Necessar^^ Because of Forfeiture 

of Privilege, . ^^ 

The Possible Not Realized, . . . • • 20 

CHAPTER I. 
Death in Life — The Life of Legality, . 23-40 

Adam Spiritually Dead, but Under Law, . . 23 
The Best Legal Development — ThroughPrudence, 

Morals, Art, 24 

The Best Schemes Delusive, ..... 28 

They Fail Because of Diversions, .... 29 

The Amiable Virtues Not Restorative, ... 34 

Man's Helplessness Proved from Pscjxhology. . 36 

CHAPTER III. 

The New Life, 41-69 

New Testament Use of the Word Life, ... 41 

The New Life a Change of Disposition, . . 44 

The Work of the Divine Spirit in this Change, . 47 

1. The New Life is Spontaneous Obedience 

to God 48 

2. Regeneration as the Healing of the Soul, 49 

3. Regeneration as a Quickening, . . 51 

4. Regeneration as a Resurrection, . . 52 

5. Regeneration as an Illumination, . . 52 

(7) 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



6. Regeneration as a Call of God, . . 56 

7. Regeneration as the Producing of Faith, . 59 

8. Regeneration as the Producing of Love, 60 

9. Regeneration as Partaking of the Divine 

Nature, 63 

The Viev^^s of Various Authors, .... 65 

CHAPTER IV. 

Regeneration a Fact, 70-86 

The New^ Life Manifests Itself, 70 

Illustrated in the Lives of Paul and Augustine . 70 

Illustrated in Ordinary Christian Lives, . . 72 

Illustrated by the New Ideas Resulting From It, . 73 

Instances: i. God Our Only Judge, . . 74 

2. Fellowship with Christ, • • • 75 

3. The Substantialitj^ of Faith, . . 75 

4. Universal Indebtedness, ... 77 

5. Belief in the Incarnation, . . 79 

6. The System of Christian Morals, . 80 

CHAPTER V. 

Author of Regeneration, 

God The Sole Author of Regeneration, 

Proved by the Nature of Regeneration, . 

The Scriptures Assert It, ... 

Proved from the Nature of Sin, 

Proved from the Nature of Human Character, 



87-95 
87 
87 
89 
90 
92 

CHAPTER VI. 

Conversion, 96-116 

Regeneration Is for the Sake of Good Works, . 96 

Holy Life a Present Duty, 97 

Man's Work in Conversion, 99 

Efficacy of Ministerial Work, 103 

The Means of Grace Productive of Good, . . 105 

Instances^ of Effective Christian Work, . . . 107 

Appendix I — Faith, 117 

Appendix II— The Justice of God in Requiring 

Holiness in Men, 122 



CHAPTER L 

EVERY MAN MUST BE TWICE-BORN. 

The Scriptures teach the necessity of a sec- 
ond birth. The first birth, that of the flesh, 
does not introduce one into a spiritual life. The 
life of the flesh is not in accord with the divine 
will, but must give way to a spirit life before one 
can be in harmony with the will of God. Rom. 
viii. 8 : '' So, then, they that are in the flesh 
cannot please God.*' Rom. viii. 7 : '^ The carnal 
mind is enmity against God.'' The life follow- 
ing the second birth is the only real life. Rom. 
viii. 13 : '' For if ye live after the flesh ye shall 
die; but if ye, through the Spirit do mortify the 
deeds of the body, ye shall live." The absolute 
necessity of the second birth is asserted by our 
Lord. John iii. 3: *' Verily, verily, I say unto 
thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see 
the kingdom of God." The words yewTjdy avudev 
may be translated born anew or born front 
above, but in either case equally set forth the 
necessity of a birth other than that of flesh — the 
spirit-birth. John iii. 6: *'That which is born 
of the flesh is flesh ; and that which is born of 

(9) 



10 REGENERA TION. 

the spirit is spirit." The change which takes 
place through the new birth is a radical one, 
which gives rise to new deeds and new methods 
of lite ; — a new morality and a new aim in labor, 
as much as if one were created a new and dif- 
ferent person. Eph. iv. 22-24. **That ye put 
off concerning the former conversation the old 
man, which is corrupt according to the deceit- 
ful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your 
mind ; and that ye put on the new man, which, 
after God, is created in righteousness and true 
holiness.'' 

There is no fixed relation as to time be- 
tween the first and second birth. Nicodemus 
asked Christ if a man could be born when 
he is old; Christ answered (John iii. 8): 
^' The wind bloweth where it listeth, and 
thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst 
not tell whence it cometh, and whither it 
goeth ; so is every one that is born of the 
Spirit.*' There is no age at which the spirit 
birth is impossible. With Jeremiah and John 
the Baptist 'it was coetaneous with the birth 
of the fliesh, with many who are found in our 
churches it occurred so early that they do not 
remember the event or recall any time when 
they consider themselves to have been really 
without the true hfe of the spirit. There are 



MAN MUST BE TWICE-BORN. 11 



some regenerated in advanced years, a few even 
in extreme old age. The great majority of 
those who enter on the new life, do so in 
youth ; — perhaps in the latter part of childhood 
and the earlier part of youth. 

There is no connection, belonging to the 
course of nature, between the second birth and 
any means leading to it. There are no quali- 
ties of the soul to be developed into spirit life, 
there is no germ within the soul which in its 
proper time bursts into a life that is the spirit- 
life of which the Scriptures speak. There 
comes a time when some believe on the Lord 
Jesus Christ, but no known external event fixes 
the time, and if the will of the one who believes 
has any force in determining it, yet his choice is 
not a co-efficient in the regeneration, it merely 
performs a work which God has made a condi- 
tion but not a means. In John 1:13 the chil- 
dren of God are described as those ''Which were 
born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, 
nor of the will of man, but of God." 

The effect of the spirit birth is not the exist- 
ence of a new spirit, but is a new disposition of 
the spirit already existing. The body and (if 
we hold to the doctrine of traducianism), the 
spirit are transmitted from parents. But no 
one is born with the spirit in affiliation with the 



12 REGENERA TION. 

Spirit of God. This quality is the impartation 
of the Holy Ghost. The conformity of soul to 
the divine will is not transmitted by parents 
but is a gift of God and with its bestowment 
the person is born into the family of God. 
With Jesus of Nazareth the two births occurred 
together, when the Logos became flesh the rea- 
sonable soul of Jesus was full of grace and 
truth. The conception was by the Holy Ghost 
and the body and spirit were together from the 
first both human and divine. Cor. 15: 45. 
*' The last Adam was made a quickening spirit." 
The contrast between the first Adam and the 
second consisted in part at least in this, that 
one was a living soul the other a quickening 
spirit. When God breathed into the nostrils 
of the first man the breath of life he became a 
living soul. In this he was raised above the 
brute creation and endowed, we may believe, 
with immortality ; he became possessed of a 
soul that did not require food for its sustenance 
or the impulse of outward things to be set in 
motion, but continued and acted from its own 
internal force. Yet it fell under influences 
from the body and from other spirits which 
swayed its movements and modified its charac- 
ter. The spirit was not quickening, did not 
mould and control the entire internal force of 



MAN MUST BE TWICE-BORN. 13 

the man. The internal intelligent power within 
the body is called the soul or the spirit, each 
term designating the same substance or entity. 
Yet one of the words has reference to a con- 
nection of this entity with the body more 
prominently than the other. The Greek terms 
designating the animating force within the 
body are sometimes used as English terms, viz : 
Psyche soul, 7ious reason, pneuma spirit, (V^i^;t7, 
vuvQ^ TTvevua). These three designate one and 
the same substance. Yet psyche indicates 
a nearer relation to the animal life than 
pneuma, while pneuma points to a kinship with 
God more distinctly than pysche. Nous takes 
its place between the two, a rational faculty 
that gives law to the psyche, and that accepts, 
should accept, the higher intuitions and tend- 
dencies of the pneuma as in some respects 
higher than itself. But neither of these ele- 
ments of man*s inner nature exercises an im- 
perial sway. Reason does not hold the pas- 
sions and appetites in check, there are no such 
spiritual afifinities as to hold man in loyal alle- 
giance to God, and the soul, the pyschic nature, 
is akin to the animal in many of its traits. 
The spirit is not in any view quickening, 
life-producing, ; there is no power within it 
which obtains the mastery and controls the 



14 RE GENERA TION. 

character, much less secures the right character, 
the Hfe that is life indeed. Hence there is need 
of some additional force in the soul ; this force, 
according to the scriptures is secured by the 
second birth, or spirit-birth. 

The second birth is not to be considered a 
repair of the defects of the first birth, but as a 
supplementary birth, completing indeed the 
ideal of humanity but not by a completion of 
the natural birth, not by a development of any 
thing already belonging to nature. It is a 
work of the Spirit of God upon the human 
spirit by which the human spirit enters on a 
higher, a heavenly, alliance. Adam had not in 
his state of innocence this affinity to the divine 
which the redeemed soul has. Had he pos- 
sessed it he would not have fallen away from 
God. We shall notice soon the method by 
which he might, perhaps, have attained the 
position of sainthood, but now notice that the 
flesh-birth does not even in idea involve the 
spirit-birth. Flesh in its tendencies, left to 
itself, opposes and resists the control of the 
spirit, or spirit-life. The apostle Paul uses 
the word flesh, to designate man's sinful 
nature, as defined in Thayer's New Testament 
Lexicon, '' The earthly nature of man apart 
from divine influence, and therefore prone to 



MAN MUST BE TWICE-BORN. 15 

sin and opposed to God/* This meaning of 
the word is emphatically set forth in Gal. 5:17. 
** For the flesh lusteth against the spirit and 
the spirit against the flesh ; for these are con- 
trary the one to the other." The expression 
born again, John 3 : 3, does not exclude 
the view which we here oppose, but the Revised 
Version translates born anew and gives in the 
margin born from above. The latter is the more 
natural translation of the words, though 
the question of Nicodemus would indicate that 
he understood the thought to refer rather to 
the repetition of a former act than the perform- 
ance of a new one. His understanding of the 
matter, however, is not decisive, while John 
1:13 seems explicit in support of the view here 
maintained. Believers are described in this 
passage as those ^* born, not of blood, nor of 
the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but 
of God." Blood is the favorite term for ex- 
pressing the unity of the generations, but the 
birth now in question is expressly excluded 
from it. The Greek word iralLyyevecia found 
in Matt. 19 : 28 and Titus 3 : 5 would, from its 
composition favor the idea of a second and more 
perfect natural birth, but in Matthew it has no 
reference to the regeneration of the individual 
soul, and in Titus the explanation of the term 



16 REGENERATION. 

favors the idea of a spirit-birth outside the 
course of nature. The regeneration seems to 
refer to baptism, which symboHzes the renewing 
of the Holy Ghost bestowed upon us by the 
Father for Christ's sake. The supplementary 
character of the new birth is also indicated by 
the fact that by it we enter a new family, the 
family of God, John i : 12. ^' As many as re- 
ceived Him, to them gave He power [the priv- 
ilege] to become the sons of God,'' Rom. 8: 14. 
" For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, 
they are the sons of God," Gal. 3 : 26. *^ For 
ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ 
esus. 
The need of a spirit-birth rose from forfeiture 
of a possible development. The first man fell 
from an opportunity to enter on a life of full 
communion with God. We are not to suppose 
that Adam entered on the duties of life with any 
special formality, but that his attention was 
called to present duties and that he was required 
to meet occasions as men now are. *' Starting in 
business" is the expression used when a young 
man sets up for himself in the world. Adam 
was obliged to begin and pursue his course in 
accordance with rules and in accordance with 
the demands of circumstances. By divine or- 
dinance there was a peculiar '' law of Paradise," 



MAN MUST BE TWICE-BORN, 17 

but not a mysterious law, or one difificult to 
obey. There was a labor to perform, he was to 
dress and to keep the garden. We have no- 
where any intimation of peculiar solemnities 
connected with the inauguration of the first 
man in the duties of manhood. The garden 
was very good, the man was very good, the 
work was very good. There seems to have 
been a fitness of part to part. 

Adam had not at this time an abiding hold 
upon spiritual life. He was a living soul, he 
was not a quickening spirit. If we may judge 
of the ideal character of a man by the attain- 
ment of the Christian man, we can say, that he 
must be immovably fixed in his adherence to 
God. This is sainthood. Perseverance belongs 
to the spiritual man's trust in God. This quality 
Adam did not possess. He was innocent but 
not fixed in holiness. It may be assumed that 
the discipline to which he was subject in the 
garden was adapted to confirm him in innocence, 
and to enlarge his range of religious life so as to 
embrace an absolute loyalty to God as a part 
of it. But if such a position were to be at- 
tained, it was to be attained by education, by 
culture through a life of probation. While it 
is possible that Adam might through a moral 
discipline have reached the position of a man of 



18 REGENERA TION, 

God, have been assured against becoming a 
child of the Devil, it is certain that he did not 
secure this result, and there is no one of his 
posterity whom moral culture even tends to 
bring to sainthood. 

Moreover it is probable that the man would 
have had aid to a divine life beyond the moral 
force of motives coming to him in the course of 
nature. God was his teacher. The probation 
to which he was subjected was of divine appoint- 
ment. If he had learned to know and value his 
divine friend he would soon have found it im- 
possible to disregard his wishes. God's will 
would have been his law. Temptation would 
not have drawn him away from his Divine Mas- 
ter but have driven him to cling more tenacious- 
ly to him. The Divine Being did not come 
into close intimacy with the first man as the 
Holy Spirit comes to us in regeneration, did not 
impart that divine alliance of which the Apostle 
John speaks in describing the one born of God ; 
it was not impossible for him to renounce his 
divine sonship as it is for those who have ex- 
perienced the spirit-birth, but he did not, like 
sinning men, need the second birth in order to 
have access to God, and a full and unshaken al- 
liance with Deity might in time have been estab- 
lished. Moreover we may well believe that 



MAN MUST BE TWICE-BORN. 19 

God would have advanced his pupil from one 
grade to another and have taken him more 
closely to Himself if he had gone successfully 
through temptation, or the series of tempta- 
tions, designed for him. We have probably 
some intimation of the attainments possible to 
the sinless Adam in that tree of life from which 
he was driven after his fall. Partaking of that 
fruit would perhaps have completed the charac- 
ter required by the human ideal and he might 
have passed from a living soul to a life-giving 
spirit, — a spirit competent to invigorate, and 
control his own entire being. It may be that 
God had in store other and higher gifts to be 
bestowed upon his son and pupil as he should 
become able to receive them. He may have 
been ready by creative force to advance him to 
a higher spiritual standing. But if we can only 
speak by surmise here, we know that character 
tends to permanency and may firmly believe 
that the habit of obedience would soon have 
secured the original man against the wiles of 
the adversary. Determinations remain in part 
when once formed, they easily repeat them- 
selves, and they soon become fixed as the per- 
manent form of the will. They are the organ- 
ization of the will, the will without them is no 
will, mere formless substance having the possi^ 



20 REGENERA TION, 

bility of becoming a will. Hence the will be- 
comes self-conscious through its determinations, 
knows itself in them. If once the will of Adam 
could have been consciously determined in 
the right and recognized itself as the embodi- 
ment of law, it may be that it would of its own 
force have repelled solicitations to evil. It 
might have said, as our Lord later said : '' The 
prince of this w^orld cometh and hath nothing 
in me.** And it may be that this disposition 
and force of will would have descended by 
heredity to his posterity. 

Whatever development or acquisition in 
righteousness may have been possible to the 
father of the human family, the possibility was 
not realized. He did not form such a habit of 
obedience to law as to be secure against tempta- 
tion. He did not so avail himself of the in- 
structions of the Lord God as to be proof 
against the insinuations of God's enemy. God 
did not interpose either by miracle or by warn- 
ing in the hour of trial to restrain him from 
transgression. Adam deliberately, without be- 
ing deceived, ate the fruit which he had been 
commanded not to eat. He was left to the free- 
dom of his own will and made use of it to carry 
out his impulses, the spontaneous promptings 
of nature. He sinned as a living soul, not as a 



MAN MUST BE TWICE-BORN, 21 

life-giving; /. ^., action-controlling, spirit, not 
even as an action-controlling reason. Had he 
followed an enlightened self-interest, acted upon 
the dictates of a sound worldly judgment, he 
would have chosen to adhere to God's way, but 
his impulses carried him away and he adopted 
a course of opposition to God. He had now 
fallen from his innocence and had become 
guilty. Probably a distinct consciousness of 
guilt came over him earlier than a distinct con- 
sciousness of sin. Impulse blinded him, but 
reflection at leisure wakened his mind, he be- 
gan to have second thoughts, and saw the dif- 
ference between good and evil. He saw that 
he had forfeited God's approbation and hid 
himself ; he saw that he was naked and under- 
took to clothe himself. God accepted the 
judgment and self-condemnation of the human 
pair as true, he clothed them, he cursed the 
ground for their sakes. Henceforth there is 
separation between man and God. The way 
to God is sealed. Men feel after God, there is 
no open communion as heretofore. Cain and 
Abel offer sacrifices, one offering is accepted 
the other is rejected. God is known in threat- 
ening and punishment, but is not a guide and 
companion in the occupations of the day. 
There is now no possibility that Adam should 



22 RE GENERA 11 ON. 

by self-development attain a permanent com- 
munion with God. He is enclosed in world- 
liness, there is no bridge across the gulf between 
himself and God. He may long for a better 
life, but the longing is earth-born and earthly 
to the end. No breath from heaven falls upon 
him, his sentiments and aspirations are terrene 
and temporal. 



CHAPTER IL 

DEATH IN life;— THE LIFE OF LEGALITY. 

Adam was spiritually dead, /. ^., was cut off 
from the means of true spiritual growth, but 
his spirit was not annihilated, it stili had a large 
range of activity and many inherent forces to 
be developed. What kind of life was he to 
live? A loving adoration of God was not open 
to him ; free divine communion was closed 
against him ; ardent aspirations for enjoyment 
among loving friends higher and better than 
himself were no longer possible ; the free self- 
forgetting, untrammeled impulses of love, 
against which there is no law however intense 
they may become, had no longer a place in his 
soul. But his soul was the home of law ; his 
nature called for self-control and self-culture ; 
the opportunities of life were to summon him 
to choose between the too little and too much^ 
and to adopt the golden mean ; coming events 
were to require of him the exercise of courage, 
of endurance, of perseverance amid misfortunes 
and disappointments; the wants of others were 
to demand of him self-denial and benevolence. 

(23) 



24 REGENERA TION. 

Here was opened before him a large range of 
spiritual activity. What development can be 
expected in such circumstances ? Has the man 
an opportunity to work out his salvation? His 
soul carries within itself a law, and that a law 
of righteousness. He has a conscience that 
continually reminds him of the law and enforces 
on him the duties which the law enjoins. Can 
the man live a blessed life without the immediate 
friendship of God ? or if not a blessed life a 
holy life? Is the man rounded off and com- 
plete within himself, and so competent to the 
fulfillment of his calling? 

The best probable development of humanity, 
on the supposition that the spirit puts forth its 
energies from itself as a centre, we may sup- 
pose, would be in accord with the following 
principles. 

There is possible to the spirit a development 
which should bring to view much that is com- 
mendable and admirable. Socrates* estimate 
of honor and duty, the virtues of Marcus Aure- 
lius, the amiability and serenity of Epictetus 
will always elicit applause. The soul may as- 
sert its own dignity in relation to the flesh ; it 
may repress appetite and restrain greed, it may 
apply a spiritual standard to the questions 
which relate to the life of humanity, it may 



DEA TH IN LIFE, 25 

look forward to old age and beyond this world ; 
it may, in accordance with one of President 
Edwards* resolutions, judge of actions as the 
entire existence shall demand, taking into ac- 
count not only present interests but those of 
never so many ages hence ; actuated by such 
broad considerations, the soul may pass through 
a career which the world will pronounce one of 
splendor, one worthy of imitation. The soul 
may find evidence of its immortality in its pres- 
ent life, evidence perhaps confirmed by the fact 
that godliness is not its annihilation. It would 
be possible, it would be even natural, that the 
human spirit, in view of such things, should 
hold that the soul is its own place, has a home 
within itself, can of its own force make life — an 
endless life, blissful. 

The worldly spirit might devise a broad pub- 
lic morality as well as a strict private morality. 
It might cherish honesty as the best policy, it 
might cherish righteousness as the highest wis- 
dom, a clear conscience as the highest happi- 
ness. It might see the weakness, the futility, 
of too great selfishness, and devise a scheme of 
morals on the principles of a generous altruism. 
Indeed the worldly spirit often seems more 
genial and free in its fellowships than the soul 
regenerated by the Divine Spirit. This may 



26 RE GENERA TION. 

be to the discredit of the soul professing regen- 
eration, but such a result may also grow out of 
this fact, that the worldly mind is shut up to a 
narrower view of life and duty than the mind 
of the disciple of our Lord. Still it must be 
granted that there are noble exhibitions of 
sympathy and self-sacrifice on the part of many 
whose wisdom is the v/isdom of this world. 

The worldly spirit also has open before it the 
broad and inviting fields of society, of science, 
and of art. The sons of Cain seem to have 
been in advance of the children of Seth in the 
adornments of life. In admiration of earthly 
beauty those might be expected to take the 
precedence who should find their heaven upon 
earth. We might expect that the builders of 
cities, the builders of stately mansions, the pos- 
sessors of horses and chariots and of gay equi- 
pages would be those whose minds were not at- 
tracted to the things eternal and invisible. We 
should suppose that they who were clothed in 
fine linen and fared sumptuously every day 
would be those who received their good things 
in this life. We should expect that the lovers 
of theatres and games would be those who had 
little thought of the incorruptible crown. But 
we can see that the worldly mind might develop 
much to win admiration by its works of genius, 



DBA TH IN LIFE, 27 

by its achievements in architecture, sculpture, 
and painting. We can well see that things 
spiritual and heavenly might seem dim, faint, 
colorless, when contrasted with the products of 
human imagination. David Friedrich Strauss, 
who went from Christianity to paganism, who 
made art his religion and Cosmos his God, in 
speaking of his substitute for religion says : ^*To 
the end of forming just conclusions in these 
things, we study history; ^ ^ "^ at the 
same time we endeavor to enlarge our knowl- 
edge of the natural sciences ; "^ ^ and in the 
writings of our great poets, in the performances 
of our great musicians, we find a satisfying 
stimulus for the intellect and the heart, and for 
fancy in her deepest and most sportive moods. "^ 
He says also: '^The function of art in all its 
branches is, no doubt, to reveal the harmony of 
the universe, or at least display it to us in mini- 
ature, for though it ever maintains itself amid 
the apparent confusion of phenomena, it ex- 
ceeds our comprehension as an infinite whole. 
This is the reason of the intimate connection 
which, with all nations, has always existed be- 
tween art and religion. The great creations of 
the plastic arts have always in this sense a relig- 
ious influence."^ Such a means of culture, such 
1. The Old Faith and the New. II. 120, 122. 



28 REGENERA TION, 

an imitation of religion is possible to one who 
makes the story of Jesus a myth and denies the 
existence of a personal God. 

But this best and highest culture under the 
most favorable circumstances is delusive and 
for the world at large is of little account. It is 
always confined within the compass of the 
human faculties, its law of morals is prudence, 
its highest devotion is a devotion to humanity, 
its power over the sentiments and emotions is 
through an address to the esthetic nature. In 
experience those who resort to this method of 
culture are ever sensible of defect in their under- 
takings and are obliged to confess that their 
deepest longings are unsatisfied. Those who 
most fully put in practice the moral scheme of 
worldly culture are continually conscious of per- 
sonal failures, while they see the world at large 
drifting into heedless, reckless and selfish courses 
of conduct. Such schemes lack attractive force. 
There is no example to follow. The Christian 
presents in his scheme of life a pattern to be 
followed. He can imitate his Master and thus 
fulfill his calling. The devotee of morality can 
only look upon his scheme as an abstraction, 
and must expect to realize it only in part, 
through experimental endeavor and studied 
subjection to rule. 



DBA TH IN LIFE. 29 



We are not permitted to judge of human 
nature as if it simply developed itself from 
within, and as if only the best within was ef- 
ficient, and productive of results. The devel- 
opments of humanity in view of law are through 
transgression of law as often as in obedience to 
it. And the forces that act upon the soul are 
temptations from without as often as prompt- 
ings from within. The best supposable develop- 
ment through law, through society, through 
science, through art, is never actually attained, 
and those manifestations that excite our won- 
der and commendation are exceptional. The 
worldly mind does not find its way heavenward. 
The culture it achieves in general does not give 
evidence of a heaven-creating power. When 
we survey humanity in its length and breadth 
we can have no hesitation in affirming its way- 
wardness and wantoness. When we see that 
among men honor is mostly a triumph over 
others, that enjoyment is mostly a gratification 
of vanity, we are obliged to confess that man's 
mind is greatly perverted. When we see that 
the homes of the masses are uncertain as to 
place and provision for want, that comfort in 
life is at the mercy of circumstances, almost of 
accidents, we are compelled to admit the frailty 
of our humanity. When we see, that marriage 



30 REGENERATION, 

is often soon followed by divorce, still oftener 
by contention and wretchedness, that single 
life is often a life of shame frightfully delineated 
before the world by early death, suicide and 
murder, we see that the name of home is almost 
a mockery. When we see the large mass of 
hired laborers which our race affords swayed 
hither and thither by prejudice or whim, when 
we see the w^ar between capital and labor, the 
greed of the employer and the privations sub- 
mitted to by the employed for the sake of 
vengeance on the employer, we are tempted 
to believe that the mission of men on earth is 
to bite and devour one another. When we see 
the self-indulgences of the rich, the envy of the 
poor, the moral degredation of the communist 
and the recklessness of the anarchist, the simple 
suggestion of development according to law 
seems like grim satire. When we see that, 
apart from the influences of the gospel, 'there 
are very few of our race who do not fall into 
one or other of these classes, we can have no 
hesitation in accepting the assertion that the 
worldly mind has no element of salvation in it, 
that spiritual death reigns over the natural life. 
A consideration of the forces that impel and 
control our human experience confirms the im- 
pressions made by a mere glance at men in the 



DBA TH IN LIFE. 31 

mass. The business of the world tends to or- 
ganize itself around a centre of its own. It 
forms a system of forces allied and adjusted to 
each other which is known as the business 
world. In this systematized scheme there are 
generated habits and principles which form a 
scheme of business morals separate from ideal 
morals and from religious teachings. It is not 
necessary to hold that such morals are false in 
principle and corrupting in practice, though at 
times that cannot be denied, — but they flow 
from another source than that of the principles 
approved by our natural intuitions and reli- 
gious instincts. The virtues commended by the 
books, the habits commended from the pulpit 
are often set aside with the smile of pity and 
contempt, accompanied by the remark that 
their authors knew nothing of practical life. 
There often grows up a conventional morality 
which displaces the pure morals of the Bible 
and of common sense. And the artificial 
scheme of morals adapts itself to varying cir- 
cumstances. There are the morals of the camp 
and of the mining gulch, the morals of the 
robber's haunts and of the artisan's guild, the 
morals of social life and of business life. One 
of the biographers of Aaron Burr claimed that 
he should be judged by the code of morals 



32 REGENERA TION. 

which he had adopted ; said it was not fair to 
judge and condemn him by the principles of 
Christianity, but that, since he had dehberately 
adopted the hfe of a man of the world, he 
should be judged as such. When we see that 
conventionalisms become the rule, that the 
simplicity of nature is taken as evidence of a 
want of culture, w^e cannot but admit that 
through the realm of morals the artificial rather 
than the true will prevail, that conduct will not 
only not be divine, but not even human as hu- 
manity would develop itself under its primary 
laws, it will be the conduct of humanity dis- 
torted by pride, or greed, or vanity, or some 
other single emotion in excess. 

There are, moreover, stronger forces actua- 
ting human nature than society or business. 
The religious instinct is deeply imbedded in 
the soul. When the spirit is cut off from God, 
— the support of its true life, — this instinct is 
not eradicated. It asserts itself continually, 
and since it finds little response in nature and 
is cut off from the communion which Adam 
had when God was accustomed to walk in 
Eden, it is compelled to devise its own objects 
of worship, to set up its own gods. And when 
we consider the motives that prompt its activ- 
ity we can well perceive that its gods may be 



DBA TH IN LIFE. 33 

personified vices and its worship may be crime. 
The sense of absolute dependence, with no clear 
view of that on which we depend opens the 
way to unlimited superstition. If the most 
gifted and etherial human spirits can maintain 
that the sense of entire dependence is the basis 
of all religion and gives it a full and sufficient 
support without any reference to the teachings 
of the intellect, it is not strange that those who 
have no communion with God and no revelation 
from Him should make this sense a dominant 
power and be swayed by gross and debasing 
superstitions. Man is so helpless before the 
forces of nature that he will inevitably cower 
before them in abject fear if his imagination 
gives them personal form. He is so dependent 
on the fruitfulness of nature that he may be 
expected to consecrate everything to the pow- 
ers that control her productive energies. The 
destroying forces of nature, — wind, fire, disease, 
— are so desolating that man may be expected 
to yield that which he most loves to satisfy 
their fierce cravings. Accordingly they have 
given their young children to Moloch to be 
burned ; they have made the temples of Venus 
and Ceres — of love and of corn — brothels in 
which debauchery is made the worship of Deity, 
while the heathen world in its lower realms, 



34 RE GENERA TIQN, 

where temples and rituals are unknown, is domi- 
nated by superstitions which make every life in- 
secure, destroy the repose of every soul, which 
fill every mind with suspicions or dread of witch- 
craft and sorcery and put every life at the 
mercy of the charlatan and juggler. It is not 
clear that amid such terrors self-imposed man 
needs to be born again ? It may be argued, 
that there are some persons of true and invin- 
cible amiability of character, and that they show 
what human nature is capable of becoming. It 
is true that there are men and women of gentle 
disposition, who, not drawn into excesses by 
false religions or false standards of morals, by 
the promptings of inate kindness are helpful 
to their friends, and are friends of all whom 
they know. They are an honor to our human- 
ity. We could wish their number were greater. 
They do show what human nature is capable 
of becoming, but they do not prove that it is 
capable of raising itself unaided into compan- 
ionship with God, not that it, is able to dispense 
with God in reaching the highest human ideal. 
But persons of such character do not exhibit all 
that is in humanity. They themselves, in dif- 
ferent circumstances, might have been vicious 
while many in their actual circumstances 
have fallen into gross vices. If some are ami- 



DBA TH IN LIFE. 35 

able, others, and probably an equal number, 
are wanting in this quality. There are always 
those who even in youth are lovers of mischief, 
those who have pleasure in causing and witness- 
ing distress. There are ever to be found *'sons 
of Belial " who are ready to take advantage of 
others' misfortune or ready to bear false wit- 
ness for a reward. There is no lack of incen- 
diaries or assassins if one desires to employ 
them at a price. There is an overplus of those 
who would baulk and thwart attempts to pro- 
mote strict morals in a community. There are 
multitudes who are prompt to vindicate their 
right to demoralizing indulgences even if they 
have no desire for them. 

The necessity of a new birth is perhaps not 
more obvious in any view of human nature 
than in this. Here are two classes somewhat 
apart from the common mass of men, more 
self-centred, developing character somewhat in- 
dependently because of native endowments, 
more than ordinarily free from external influ- 
ences, yet, at the best, not manifesting any new 
trait or powder, only the effect of happy circum= 
stances, and, at the worst, not manifesting any- 
thing unknown to humanity at large, not recog- 
nized as possible by any member of the race. 
So true is this that those who are engaged in 



36 REGENERA TION. 

schemes for the reform of criminals base their 
undertakings on the brotherhood of man. The 
philanthropist says : you and I might have 
been the criminal and the convict. 

A convincing argument for the helplessness 
of man and his need of renewal from without 
is to be drawn from psychology. Paul has pre- 
sented it with great vigor and cogency in the 
seventh chapter of his epistle to the Romans. 
He says: (5: 14, 15) ^* For we know that the 
law is spiritual : but I am carnal, sold under 
sin. For that which I do I allow not, for w^hat 
I would, that do I not ; but what I hate, that 
do I." And bewailing his weakness he says : 
(5: 24) ^* O wretched man that I am, who shall 
deliver me from the body of this death ?" What 
is the body of death which every one carries with 
him and which works his ruin? It is the tend- 
ency of soul, the internal motive force that car- 
ries one into the wrong. The basis of it is the 
fact that man is not a life-giving spirit but only 
a living soul acting as he is acted upon, and the 
motives which act upon him come up from an 
unknown and unfathomable abyss of surround- 
ing nature. God is free because his knowledge 
extends to the entire sphere of his action and 
His will is constantly, spontaneously, in accord 
with his knowledge. We do not conceive of 



DEA TH IN LIFE, 37 

God as falling back on principles of conduct 
previously established and deliberating over 
the choices which he makes. When principles 
have been stored up for use and the will con- 
sults them for its determinations, a certain kind 
of freedom is lost. It makes no difference 
whether the choice be the right one or the 
wrong, that way of choosing puts the will under 
bonds. Adam may have had within a range 
that highest kind of freedom — the divine free- 
dom, but the range was not co-extensive with 
his power of action. If he had confined him- 
self to the necessary round of practical duties 
he might at each moment have acted from 
present knowledge and have had that freedom 
which some have attempted (not with perfect 
success) to set forth under the designation free- 
dom of indifference; — freedom of a choice with- 
out falling back on previous principles. Our 
first parents did not confine themselves to this 
range of action but went beyond their knowl- 
edge in choosing. Eve saw the tree, saw that 
the fruit was to be desired to make one wise. 
She longed for knowledge beyond that which 
God gave. God's commandment, thou shalt 
not eat, was in the place of knowledge, removed 
all uncertainties as to conduct, and afforded 
adequate ground of action. But she ventured 



38 REGENERA TION. 

Upon unknown ground, the desire of knowledge 
being the reason for the choice. Here was a 
dead something, a desired unknown thing that 
acted as a cause in moving the will. As Cole- 
ridge has expressed it, a nature was admitted 
into the will. A cherished desire controlled it. 
Adam yielded to a like influence, though not 
deceived, and was still more guilty. From that 
time on the will has acted in darkness. What- 
ever may be said of Adam there can be no 
doubt that his posterity came into the world 
with the will weighted. We deliberate and fall 
back upon our principles or habits or ten- 
dencies and they make our choices for us. 
Eve had a desire to be wise, her descend- 
ants after thousands of years inherit many 
desires, a vast body of motive force which acts 
on the will. They come into life as if they had 
brought with them from another world a char- 
acter already formed. So strong on many 
points, especially where the claims of God con- 
flict with the wishes of men, is man's bias that 
when he has found how a course of conduct is 
related to it, he is already decided, his choice is 
made. Man really comes into the world with 
many choices, his religious choices already made, 
and he is enslaved to them. This state of ex- 
istence is very properly described as that of a 



DBA TH IN LIFE. 39 

dead will, or that of spiritual death. The pen- 
alty of eating the forbidden fruit was death in 
that self-same day; and this death the spirit 
then died. This body of motive force acting 
on the will, this mass of ready-made choices, is 
man's original sin. It is a body of death which 
he brings with him and which he must cast 
off if he is to live a true life of the spirit. 
Paul ascribed deliverance from it to the Lord 
Jesus Christ. There are theologians who 
would rescue man from this weighted will 
through the energy of the will itself. Let a 
man gather up himself into an independent 
force, they say, let him make himself a new 
whole over against the world, says Ritschl, let 
him put forth his actions from himself as a 
centre, discarding the causal force of motives, 
asserting his supremacy above nature, and in 
this way he will become a new creature. There 
are other theologians who afifirm man's ability 
to achieve such a deliverance of himself and 
hold him responsible for it who yet have no ex- 
pectation of seeing the deliverance ever accom- 
plished. But the difficulty in the case is that 
the body of death, the nature-force which en- 
slaves the will is in the soul itself, is the will 
itself degraded to nature, as the apostle ex- 
presses it, **sold under sin." It is a body of 



40 REGENERA TION. 

choices, ready-made, called character which has 
inserted itself between knowledge and con- 
science on the one hand and the will on the 
other. Separating one's self from the world 
does not therefore separate one from his bur- 
den. The burden is not the world#but dead 
spirit, spirit in its forms of existence and action 
reduced to nature. Its actions even in at- 
tempts at reform are vitiated by its modes of 
action. Its attempted obedience to law is only 
in acts forbidden by the law. True life is 
never to be expected as a product of death. 
Spirit-life must be through a new spirit, i, e,, 
a new kind of spirit, a spirit born of the Divine 
Spirit. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE NEW LIFE. 

The Scriptures speak of a new life set over 
against the death which has now been spoken of. 
This Hfe is the result of a spirit-birth, or a 
second birth. Those who partake of the new 
hfe are born of the spirit, or born of God. 
John 3:8, I : 13. This birth is designated by 
the following terms among others : regenera- 
tion, conversion, newness of life, change of 
heart, change of disposition, new nature, be- 
gotten of the truth, born from above, received 
the spirit of adoption, taught of God, entered 
into life, passed from death into life, loving, 
believing, enlightened. The Scriptural senti- 
ment is that the soul does not really live till 
this second birth takes place. It is dead while 
it serves the portion of humanity which lives 
by the first birth. '^ To be carnally minded is 
death,'* Rom. 8 : 6. One enters into life when 
he is renewed by the creative spirit. The word 
life is used nearly a hundred times in the New 
Testament to express the state attained by this 
spiritual change. The forms of representation 

(41) 



42 RE GENERA TION. 

vary, but the same idea pervades all the texts 
in which the new life is referred to. Some- 
times the life is a treasure to be possessed, the 
pearl of great price. '* He that heareth my 
word and believeth on Him that sent me, hath 
everlasting life." John 5 : 24. " That they may 
lay hold on eternal life (r^c hvTcnq Idtj^^ the 
life which is life indeed), iTim. 6: 19. Some- 
times the life is conceived of as a state of 
blessedness, independent of persons, in which 
they may find rest and peace. *' It is better 
for thee to enter into life (the life) halt and 
maimed, rather than having two hands or two 
feet to be cast into everlasting fire." Matt. 18: 8. 
Sometimes the life is conceived of as an inher- 
itance descending from the Father to his chil- 
dren. '* And every one that hath forsaken 
houses, etc., shall inherit everlasting life." Matt. 
19: 29. As being heirs together of the grace 
of life. I Peter 3 : 7. Sometimes this life is 
represented as a force within the man manifest- 
ing itself by its own inherent energy, or sus- 
taining itself by processes appropriate to a liv- 
ing being. '' But the water that I shall give 
him shall be in him a well of water springing 
up into everlasting life." John 4: 14. **He that 
believeth on me, as the Scripture hath said, out 
of his belly shall flow rivers of living water." 



THE NE W LIFE. 43 

John 7: 38. In the following passage energy 
supported by appropriate means rather than 
spontaneous energy is in the mind of the 
speaker. '* Then Jesus said unto them, verily, 
verily, I say unto you, except ye eat the flesh 
of the Son of Man, and drink his blood, ye 
have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh 
and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life ; and 
I will raise him up at the last day. For my 
flesh is meat indeed and my blood is drink in- 
deed,** — (true food and true drink) John 6: 

53-55. 

We may infer that the great blessing which 
God bestows upon the follower of Christ is life, 
— eternal life, the life which is life indeed. It 
is an object of hope, the full enjoyment of 
which is to be realized in the heavenly world. 
But some participation in it is possible at the 
present time. The believer has already passed 
from death to life. Paul lived his earthly life 
by the faith of the Son of God. The present 
possession of 'a new life was understood to be 
the privilege and reward of the Christian, as 
may be inferred from these words : ** When 
they heard these things, they held their peace, 
and glorified God, saying, then hath God also 
to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life.'* 
Acts II : 18. 



44 RE GENERA TION. 

The change by which a new Hfe is entered 
upon is often spoken of as a change of heart ; 
we can, perhaps, apprehend it as readily if we 
call it a change of disposition. Spirit as well 
as matter needs to be disposed in order to be 
effective. The materials of which a clock is 
made are the same unwrought as when so con- 
structed as to keep time. It is the disposition 
of the parts which transforms wood and iron 
and brass into an instrument that strikes off 
minutes and hours and days. The difference 
between Cologne Cathedral and a quarry of 
rock is in the disposition which is m.ade of the 
material. In like manner spirits derive their 
significance from their disposition. There is 
not, indeed, a disposition of parts, for spirit is 
believed to be simple in substance, but a dis- 
position or array of forces. Simple spirit, its 
activities directed no-whither, is of no account. 
It could not make itself known or felt. Spirit, 
as it appears in an individual person, must tend 
towards something, have a determination, be 
ready to move towards a definite object when 
the fit occasion occurs, or its is powerless, 
worthless, out of relation with the world. The 
spirit of man in its fallen state has a disposi- 
tion, it is a working spirit, an effective spirit. 
It is possessed of a determination and we know 



THE NE W LIFE. 45 

well what it tends to as its goal. A general 
term which will express the aim of its move- 
ments is worldliness. It may be that some are 
given to the service of Satan, the prince of 
spiritual evil, but if there are such we will let 
them pass. The men whom we meet seem ab- 
sorbed in worldliness. They plan for pleasure, 
or wealth, or power, or applause. The begin- 
ning and end of their movements are found in 
this world. The forces of the soul are so dis- 
posed that the resultant of effort is a product 
belonging to the life of the flesh. That they 
may be children of God, there is needed a new 
disposition of these forces. The be-all and end- 
all should not pertain to this life. An im- 
mortal spirit should contemplate an immortal 
destiny. A spirit in the image of God and 
allied to the heavenly powers should find its 
end and aim in another world and in the glory 
of God. This new disposition of the forces of 
the soul is only effected by a power from with- 
out, by the immediate power of God and is 
known as the birth by the Spirit. The depend- 
ence of the soul upon God for the new birth is 
clear in practical life, whatever may be held in 
theory. The spirit acts only through its dis- 
position and a worldly disposition, while worldly, 
would not destroy itself ; if there were an- 



46 REGENERA TION. 

other disposition able to destroy it, it would 
not require to be destroyed because it would 
have been already displaced, which contradicts 
our supposition. But upon this point there is 
really no difference of opinion. We need re- 
newal, need to be transformed in the spirit and 
temper of our minds, by the Spirit of God. 

There is no difificulty in describing the change 
of disposition which takes place in entering the 
new life, but it is impossible to describe the 
process by which it is effected. We can only 
say it takes place through the power of God. 
Christ is set before the mind in place of the 
world. This opens a way for a radical change 
of disposition. The interests earthly and heav- 
enly which are involved in the term Christ, 
which he represents, form for the soul an ob- 
ject of attraction and pursuit which is wholly 
new. The direction of the souTs movement is 
changed ; it is now away from the world not 
towards it ; the goal or terminal point is re- 
moved, it is no longer on earth, this side the 
termination of the fleshly life, but is placed far 
onward, and invites the soul to a career to be 
pursued in the eternal ages. This change of 
an object of pursuit is not of itself regenera- 
tion. The view of that far on in the future is 
possible to the worldly mind and may be made 



THE NE W LIFE. 47 

an object of thought, and in some sense of 
desire, by those still given to worldliness. The 
soul must be internally disposed to pursue the 
new object set before it. Its desires must be 
so changed that it will find its pleasure in Christ 
and the Christlike, its will must act from such 
new motives that the world will be rejected and 
Christ the supreme object of affection, its views 
of the good and the true and desirable must be 
such as to make him the only object worthy of 
full approbation and service. The change of 
the soul must be such that it wall have a new 
nature or be new-natured, from being ill-natured 
it becomes good-natured, from being worldly- 
natured it becomes heavenly-natured or heav- 
enly-minded. There rises an alliance be- 
tween the soul and the object set before it as 
cordial and firm as before existed between it 
and the world. The adhesion of the soul to its 
new Lord is not the result of struggle and the 
response to duty in opposition to desire and 
affection, but is an adhesion that carries heart 
and soul, affection and desire with it. 

How the soul is delivered from itself and 
brought into this state of communion w^ith God, 
with God in Christ is not revealed. We only 
know that the Spirit of God takes possession of 
the spirit of man and from that time it is a 



48 RE GENERA TION. 

new creature. It is from its transformation by 
the divine power created in Christ Jesus unto 
good works. But while we have no power to 
observe the method of this regeneration we 
may find in the Scriptures some ghmpses of 
the kind of force by which the Divine Spirit 
takes hold of the soul and imparts to it new 
sentiments. We see that sometimes at one 
point, sometimes at another, he impinges upon 
and overpowers the human spirit and works 
upon it to will and to do according to his own 
pleasure. We must here follow the Bible rep- 
resentations. 

I. The new relation of man to God, entered 
upon as the second birth, is characterized by 
spontaneous obedience to his will. In the nat- 
ural state, men are under the authority of an ex- 
ternal law. They hear its commands, deliberate 
upon them, consult their own interests and feel- 
ings, then perhaps obey, perhaps disobey. On the 
great and vital interests of humanity delibera- 
tion has been excluded and disobedience is a 
state of existence into which one is born. 
When the soul is regenerated it is born into a 
state of alliance with the law, or rather into uni- 
son with the entire nature of Deity, into alliance 
with a law of life of which the old law was but 
a fragment. This truth is set forth in the Old 



THE NEW LIFE. 49 

Testament, not so minutely as in the New, but 
with great positiveness and clearness. ''But 
this shall be the covenant that I will make with 
the house of Israel after those days, saith the 
Lord. I will put my law in their inward 
parts, and write it in their hearts ; and will be 
their God, and they shall be my people.*' Jer. 
31: 33. "And I will give them one heart, and I 
will put a new spirit within you ; and I will take 
the stony heart out of their flesh ; and will give 
them a heart of flesh ; that they may walk in 
my statutes and keep mine ordinances, and do 
them : and they shall be my people, and I will 
be their God." Ezekiel 11: 19, 20. 

We have here the new life achieved. The 
sovereign power of God is the source of the 
change, the change itself seems not so much a 
transformation as an exchange of substances, a 
new put in the place of the old. But there are 
other representations in which the identity of 
the new and the old is maintained. 

2. The salvation of the soul is sometimes con- 
ceived of as a healing of its diseases, or as 
quickening of the soul after life is extinct, or as 
a resurrection after one has been counted among 
the dead. In this method of imparting divine 
life the soul is represented as coming under the 
immediate power of God. The healing is not 



50 REGENERATION, 

effected by the aid of medicines but by the re- 
viving touch of the Almighty, as quicken- 
ing and resurrection are effected by the creative 
word of Deity. The idea of disease and healing 
is more akin to Old Testament thought, that of 
new life to New Testament thought. Jehovah 
says to Israel after the deliverance from Fgypt, 
*T am the Lord that healeth thee." Ex. 15: 26. 
Bodily diseases may have been in mind, but 
probably the thought reaches beyond the phys- 
ical nature. In Ps. 41 : 4 we have this prayer : 
*'Lord, be merciful unto me ; heal my soul ; for I 
have sinned against thee." In Ps. 103 : 3, are 
these words: ''Who forgiveth all thine iniquities ; 
who healeth all thy diseases." The better mind 
and heart of God's wayward people is connected 
with this promise: 'T will heal your backslidings." 
Jer. 3 : 22, 23, and Hos. 14: 4. The New Test- 
ament represents the salvation of the soul as a 
healing. To convert and be healed would have 
been the result of seeing with the eyes and 
hearing with the ears, Is. 6: 10, quoted Mk. 
4: 12, Mt. 13: 14, Luke 8: 10, Jn. 12: 40. 
This thought must have made a deep impression 
upon Christ's disciples. The salvation by 
Christ is typified by the healing effected by 
means of the brazen serpent. In immediate 
connection with the conversation with Nicode- 



THE NE W LIFE. 51 

mus we have these words : Jn. 3 : 14, 15, ''And 
as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness 
even so must the Son of Man be lifted up ; that 
whosoever believeth in him should not perish 
but have everlasting life." The greater part of 
our Lord's miracles seem to have been healings 
of diseases. Probably this form of aiding men 
most readily suggested his power to remove 
sin and guilt. Sometimes deliverance of the 
soul from its ailments accompanied the cure of 
the body. ''And Jesus seeing their faith said 
unto the sick of the palsy : Son, be of good 
cheer ; thy sins be forgiven thee." Mt. 9 : 2. 

3. As we advance in knowledge we feel more 
and more deeply our helplessness in the spiritual 
life, our dependence on divine aid. The same 
truth appears in the prayers of the church. 
That men are dead is more clearly stated in 
the New Testament than in the old ; and is 
more clearly taught in the Latin than in the 
Greek theology. The language of the New 
Testament very clearly teaches that man's 
salvation is a life succeeding to death. His 
entrance on a career of godliness is represented 
both as a quickening and a resurrection. " For 
as the Father raiseth up the dead and quickeneth 
them, even so the Son also quickeneth whom 
he will." Jn. 5 : 21. God quickens those who 



52 REGENERA TION, 

are dead in trespasses and sins. See Eph. 2 : 
4 5, Col., 2: 13, Rom. 4: 17. The word 
quicken, denoting spiritual vivification is used 
in the Old Testament, but not with so distinct 
contrast with death as in the New. (See Ps. 
71: 20, 80: 18, 119: 50). The Hebrew word 
translated quicken is hiyyah the Piel of hayah. 
The Greek word is C^JoTro^ew. This is the word 
used in I Cor. 15: 22, where the great result 
of Christ's work is set forth. '' For as in Adam 
all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.' 
Both words mean to impart life. 

4. Still more marked is the representation of 
the new life as a resurrection. The apostle 
Paul elaborately sets forth the rising to a new 
life in two of his epistles. The follower of 
Christ has died, been buried, has arisen and 
lives again. These truths are afifirmed and 
realized in baptism. '' We were buried there- 
fore with him through baptism into death : 
that like as Christ was raised from the dead 
through the glory of the Father, so we also 
might walk in newness of life.'' Rom. 6: 4 
(Revision). We are urged to consider ourselves 
alive from the dead and created anew in Christ 
Jesus. Rom. 6: 3-1 1, Col. 2 ; 12, 13. 

5. Regeneration is an illumination of the 
mind. The mind is made competent to discern 



THE NEW LIFE, 53 

spiritual truth. One of the tokens of conver- 
sion is seeing things differently. Recent con- 
verts often express surprise that they have not 
before seen religious truth in the light in which 
it now appears. They suppose they can pre- 
sent it so clearly that any one who hears will 
accept, but soon find that their own demonstra- 
tions are of little effect. In the new life there 
are new standards of judgment established, 
new standards of the desirable and the beauti- 
ful. Merely argumentative demonstration is 
powerless unless the old standards are set aside. 
It is a change in the person that gives a differ- 
ent aspect to truth, not a new force in the truth. 
Men in their natural state are alienated from 
God and their attitude affects their views of 
him. They are prejudiced in mind, their 
appreciation of the divine excellences is partial 
and distorted. They impute harsh and heart- 
less qualities to the divine nature because they 
view God with discolored and distorted vision. 
When man becomes a child of God those traits 
which are at discord with the divine nature are 
transformed and the soul is brought into har- 
mony and sympathy with it. The intellect 
brought into affinity and alliance with the 
spirit of God apprehends the truth as it is. 
This method of describing regeneration finds 



54 RE GENERA TION. 

abundant support in the Scriptures. ^' For 
God who commanded the hght to shine out of 
darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the 
light of the knowledge of the glory of God, in 
the face of Jesus Christ/' II Cor. 4:6. *' Who- 
soever sinneth hath not seen him nor known 
him." I Jn. 3 : 6. "And this is eternal life, 
that they may know thee, the only true God, 
and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent." Jn. 
17: 3. This light which is a spiritual under- 
standing of the truth, is an immediate gift of 
God. '' I thank thee, O Father, Lord of 
heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these 
things from the wise and prudent, and hast 
revealed them unto babes." Mt. 11: 25. 
Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold won- 
drous things out of thy law." Ps. 119 : 18. 

The illumination which institutes the new 
life, — the application of regeneration to the cog- 
nitive faculties, — results in new experimental 
knowledge and new powers of spiritual intuition. 
Our Lord says : 'Tf any man willeth to do his 
will, he shall know of the teaching, whether it 
be of God, or whether I speak of myself." Jn. 
7: 17. One's personal consciousness thus be- 
comes a source of new knowledge. Much of 
Christian knowledge is of this kind. The chil- 
dren of God have assurances which are the 



THE NE W LIFE. 55 



testimony of the Divine Spirit with their spirits. 
Such assurance is no demonstration to the 
world, but to its possessor is a firm and confi- 
dent conviction. Preachers sometimes have 
Saturday assurances ; earnest Christians become 
confident of their own salvation, confident that 
their requests in prayer will be granted. 
Knowledge of this kind may be associated with 
fanatical assumptions, but is not to be rejected 
on that account. It is a clear and most satis- 
factory kind of knowledge. This regenerative 
illumination also opens the way to higher in- 
tuitions. The removal of prejudices, false stand- 
ards of judgment and perverted tastes is some- 
times spoken of as opening blind eyes, unstop- 
ping deaf ears, removing a heart of stone. This 
knowledge of intuition is set forth in such 
words as these : *^ The natural man receiveth not 
the things of the Spirit of God, for they are 
foolishness unto him, neither can he know them, 
because they are spiritually discerned.'' i Cor. 
2 : 14. Christ said to his disciples, setting them 
in contrast with the men of the world : 'Tt is 
given unto you to know the mysteries of the 
kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given." 
Mt. 13: II. Paul says to the Christians at 
Colosse : ^'Ye have put on the new man, which 
is renewed in knowledge after the image of 



56 RE GENERA TION, 

Him that created him/' Col. 3 : 10. Edwards, 
in his treatise on the Rehgious Affections, says: 
**Spiritual understanding consists in a sense of 
the heart of supreme beauty and sweetness of 
the hoHness or moral perfection of divine things, 
together with all that discerning and knowledge 
of things of religion, that depends upon and 
flows from such a sense." In his sermon on the 
reality of spiritual light he says : ^^This light, 
and this only, will bring the soul to a saving 
close with Christ. It conforms the heart to the 
gospel, mortifies its enmity and opposition 
against the sch ^me of salvation therein revealed ; 
it causes the heart to embrace the joyful tid- 
ings, and entirely adhere to, acquiesce in, the 
revelation of Christ as our Saviour ; it causes the 
whole soul to accord and symphonize with it, 
admitting it with entire credit and respect, 
cleaving to it with full inclination and affection.*' 
6. Entering on the new life takes place at the 
call of God. Theologians formerly treated of 
regeneration under the general head of voca- 
tion. They had in mind a call of peculiar 
power by which the soul was so summoned to 
enter the kingdom of God as to obey. The 
word is not used exclusively in this sense. It 
often includes a summons which is not obeyed. 
" For many are called but few chosen/' Mt. 



THE NEW LIFE. 57 

22 : 14. It is necessary, therefore, to qualify 
the word if it is to be used to designate regen- 
erating power. It has, accordingly, been termed 
the gracious call, the effectual call, the call 
according to God's purpose, the internal call. 
Paul speaks of two acts of God by which he 
was prepared for the ministry, — separation, 
which took place at birth, and a call by grace, 
which must have been the call received on the 
way to Damascus. Effectual call has been 
used as a synonym of special grace, — an ex- 
pression used in contrast with common grace. 
This internal call not only addresses the intel- 
lect but persuades it and moves the will. It is 
an effectual call. Its distinguishing character- 
istic is that it changes the ultimate inclination 
of the will by working upon it directly, or, as 
some psychologists would state it, upon the 
emotive powers that govern the will. This 
operative force is the special grace which in- 
heres in the call. The power of the Holy Spirit 
over the will is constituted a call by the effect 
which it produces on the soul. The soul is 
called to God and obeys because the principle 
of opposition, — its beginning-point, hence the 
power of opposition, — is taken away. The 
will is not destroyed — is not paralyzed by the 
call, but guided in its action. " Work out your 



5S REGENERA TION, 

own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is 
God which worketh in you both to will and to 
do of his good pleasure.' Phil. 2 : 12, 13. The 
action of the will, or of the man under the call 
and in response to it is designated conversion. 
The call is a drawing into the kingdom of God 
and the response is a pressing into the kingdom. 
The one called effectually is a man drawn 
rather than addressed, a man chosen of God, 
on whom he lays his hand, whom he takes 
to himself, yet draws by forces and in ways 
wholly accordant with human activities. Em- 
mons sets common grace and special grace in 
contrast thus : ^' But since sinners are unwill- 
ing to be saved, when they see their danger 
and feel their guilt, and when the salvation 
by Christ is clearly pointed out^ no moral 
suasion or objective light can have the least 
tendency to make them willing. Though 
the gradual exhibition of objective light may 
gradually expel the darkness of their under- 
standing, yet nothing can remove their per- 
verse opposition to light itself but the instanta- 
neous and powerful operation of the divine 
Spirit upon their hearts." The peculiar power 
of converting grace in addition to the spoken 
word is implied in i Thesa. 1:5. ^* For our 
gospel came not unto you in word only, but 



THE NE W LIFE, 59 

also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in 
much assurance." 

7. Regeneration is the production of faith in 
the soul by the work of the Holy Ghost ; more 
strictly, we might say, is the production of that 
part of faith which belongs to the will. True 
faith is practical. The reply in the Westmin- 
ster Shorter Catechism to the question, '' What 
is faith? " is, '' Faith in Jesus Christ is a saving 
grace whereby we receive and rest upon him 
alone for salvation, as he is offered to us in the 
gospel." This attitude of repose in Christ is 
indispensable to true faith, the lack of it is un- 
belief. The want of faith is not disbelief ; the 
demonstration of the truth before the intellect 
may be too clear for that, but is unbelief, an 
aversion to the truth, an opposition of senti- 
ment against it, an unwillingness to submit to 
it. It is associated with coldness of feeling and 
hardness of heart. ^'Take heed, brethren, lest 
there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief 
in departing from the living God." Heb. 3 : 12. 

The essence of unbelief is the implication 
that God is not to be trusted with human inter- 
ests. It is a most offensive vice. ^^Andhe did 
not many mighty works there because of their 
unbelief. Mt. 13: 58. This unbelief, the sin of 
Eve in the Garden when she accepted the words 



60 REGENERA TION, 

of the serpent, ^' Thou shalt not surely die," is 
removed by the Holy Spirit in regeneration. 
The renewed man then cleaves to God instead 
of turning from him to the world. 

Faith is often spoken of as if it were an act 
of man rather than a work of God, but as a 
state of the soul, not an intellectual conviction, 
it is a state in which God places the soul. This 
will appear more clearly if we contrast the 
worldly and the Christian faith. The faith of 
the worldly man is faith in self, i. e,, in human na- 
ture, i, e., in Adam as he lives anew and is trans- 
mitted in the generations which follow each oth- 
er. Every man feels within himself that he 
can acquire happiness, blessedness, in this world. 
He labors for its wealth and pleasure and is con- 
fident of satisfaction in them. When God 
changes his reliance upon the world to reliance 
upon a divine support, the man takes Jesus 
Christ as the proper object of his faith. Christ 
takes the place of Adam in this trust and reli- 
ance. The renewed soul looks to its new Mas- 
ter for its peace and blessedness. The faith 
thus wrought in the heart is given in the spirit- 
birth as trust in the old Adam comes with the 
natural birth. 

8. Regeneration is that act of Goa by which 
he produces love in the heart of man. Love is 



THE NE W LIFE, 61 

affection for and attachment to a person. Chris- 
tian love is affection for Christ, and impHes that 
will-portion of faith which has been spoken of. 
The Apostle John dwells with a peculiar rap- 
ture upon this view of regeneration: "Every 
one that loveth is born of God and knoweth 
God. He that loveth not, knoweth not God ; 
for God is love.*' i Jn, 4 : 7, 8. There are 
many kinds of love, there is much sinful love. 
Still the truest and highest exercise of human 
power is love ; — love of God and of the godly. 
This is the love which the apostle had in mind. 
^'Herein is love, not that we loved God, but 
that he loved us." The thought is, our love is 
a response to, a reflection of God's love. *'We 
love him because he first loved us." The 
ground and consummation of the religious life 
is set forth in these words: "God is love, and he 
that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God 
in him." I Jn. 4: 7-21. God is a personal 
being, and when it is said that he is love, the 
meaning is, it is his nature to love, or love is 
the spontaneous expression of himself. The 
word lover is connected in thought and in liter- 
ature with sentimental and romantic love, oth- 
erwise we might use the expression, "God is 
love" as the equivalent of "God is the Lover." 
He has assumed this relation to his people in 



62 RE GENERA TION. 

representing himself as the husband of his peo- 
ple. Under the Old Covenant the people of 
God were bound to him by the allegiance of a 
wife to her husband. The church is known as 
the bride of Christ, the wife of the Lamb. ** Hus- 
bands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved 
the church, and gave himself for it, that he 
might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing 
of water by the word, that he might present it 
to himself a glorious church, not having 
spot or wrinkle, or any such thing ; but that 
it should be holy and without blemish.'* Eph. 
5 : 25-27. The human lover is attracted to 
a woman whose qualities he admires ; wins 
her affection, takes her to his home and re- 
joices over his bride. The Heavenly Bride- 
groom is attracted to the bride not by the qual- 
ities she has, but which she is to have through 
the creative energy of the love which he be- 
stows. As a friend and Saviour he attracts con- 
fidence and wins love. One by one his people 
love him because he first loved them. Not one 
admires him till he opens the eye, not one loves 
till he touches the heart; but when he is seen in 
his beauty he is altogether lovely. The church 
IS one mystical person devoting herself to her 
Lord with absolute and adoring loyalty ; Christ's 
love will be a sanctifying power of irresistible 



THE NEW LIFE. 63 

energy, and he will present the bride to himself 
not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing. 
9. Regeneration may be described as partak- 
ing of the divine nature. There is a union and 
partnership between God and man in which 
the human is brought into accord with the 
divine. If we might coin a word for the pur- 
pose we might say the human soul is theized, 
and not simply by association but by co-respon- 
sive operations. There is the assertion that 
on certain conditions the Father and the Son 
will take up their abode with the friend of 
Christ. There is also a command to men to 
work out their salvation, for God works in them 
to will and to do. Here the divine will pene- 
trates and actuates, yet leaves free, the hu- 
man will. And as we ascribe the prevailing 
will of the universe to the Father we may 
assume that here is the realization of the prom- 
ised abiding in the heart. The Son comes into 
more open relations to the soul. He repre- 
sents himself as the bread which came down from 
heaven, and says : '' He that eateth me, even 
he shall live by me ; '* and he says again : 
'' Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, 
and drink his blood, ye have no life in you.'* 
This reception of the Son of God is still more 
amply set forth in the communion supper. 



64 RE GENERA TION. 

The bread is one and eaten by all to show that 
all live by one vitalizing force imparted by 
Jesus Christ. We are to eat the bread as dis- 
cerning the Lord's body. The risen and glori- 
fied body of Christ is a kind of expanding and 
diffusive force which leavens so much of hu- 
manity as receives it and transforms it to itself. 
However much of figure there may be here, 
the idea of an intimate unison between Christ 
and the man, in which the divine gives charac- 
ter to the human, cannot be doubted. We 
have Christ ; we have his mind, we are members 
of his flesh and of his bones. The church is 
his body and lives because he lives. 

Like the Father and the Son, the Holy 
Spirit dwells in the believer and gives the 
character to his thoughts and prayers. The 
world cannot receive him, cannot see him, 
cannot know him, but he is known to the dis- 
ciple of Christ for he dwells with him and is in 
him. And the spirit not only makes himself 
known, but informs the disciple of his divine 
sonship, helps his infirmities, delivers him from 
the bondage of fear and becomes the spirit of 
adoption, seals and completes the adoption, so 
that we cry, Abba, Father. Thus the Divine 
Trinity imparts itself to the chosen humanity 
and rescues it from the corruption of the world. 



THE NE W LIFE. 65 

giving it a place in the household of God. The 
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost combine to im- 
part a h'eavenly life to the followers of Christ. 

It will be of interest to notice a few state- 
ments concerning the method of regeneration by 
authors who have given attention to this sub- 
ject. 

Anderson. ^*The change of regeneration be- 
ing mental, it is effected, not on the faculties of 
the understanding, but on the passions and affec- 
tions of the will.'* 28. ** No new passion is super- 
added : " '' It is the old love of the heart fiewly 
directed^ 40. ^^ The change of heart in regen- 
eration is produced by a previous change of 
judgment.'* 92. '* The word of God is a seed 
which impregnates the soul.'' 98. '' There is no 
speculative faith ; faith is a simple act and 
always regenerates." 100. " Believe in your 
own need, in Christ as a Saviour, and that you 
are welcomed, and your regeneration is certain.", 
1 16. *' No regeneration without the Holy Spirit, 
but the word is from the Spirit." 128. *^ The 
Holy Spirit produces the favorable circum- 
stances." 131. ''There is no holy disposition 
preceding the truth, to prepare it to relish the 
truth," etc. 1 56. '' The spirit causes the truth to 
be believed by a direct operation on the mind 
in opposition to prejudices, aversions," etc. 160. 



66 REGENERATION, 

" The unregenerate responsible because help is 
waiting to be prayerfully applied for.'* 163. 
'^ Prayer is answered if conscientiously uttered, 
though answered for Christ's sake." 165. 

Turrettin. " Conversion habitual or passive 
is effected by an infusion from the Holy Spirit 
of spiritual habits." Though the Holy Spirit 
does not act without the word, yet He acts 
immediately on the soul, so that vocation nec- 
essarily assigns (sortiatur) its own effect. 
Tom. n, 460, 3. 

Finney. ** Regeneration is nothing else than 
the will being duly influenced by the truth." 
The Holy Spirit presents the truth to the mind 
in a passive state ; this is no part of regenera- 
tion, but induces it. 289. 

Charnock. ''' From the foregoing considera- 
tions it is fully proved that man in all his 
capacities, is too weak to produce in himself the 
work of regeneration ; therefore God alone is 
the prime efificient cause of this glorious work." 

Shedd. "" Man is passive in regeneration. 
He cannot actively originate spiritual life. His 
relation to regeneration is that of a recipient. 
In this instant when the new life is imparted, 
the activity is solely that of God the Holy 
Ghost." n, 501. 

Dr. Charles Hodge. " Regeneration itself, 



THE NE W LIFE, 67 

the infusion of a new life into the soul, is the 
immediate work of the Spirit." II. 685. ''The 
assertion that regeneration is an act of God's 
omnipotence, is, and is intended to be, a denial 
that it is an act of moral suasion. It is an 
affirmation that it is ''physical" in the old 
sense of that word, as opposed to moral ; and 
that it is immediate, as opposed to mediate, 
or through or by the truth." Ill, 31. 

Prof. H. B. Smith. " The term regeneration, 
in its strictest sense, may be said to signify or 
have reference to an instantaneous act, an act 
of the Holy Spirit in a moment of time, where- 
by the soul is renewed, changed from the love 
of sin to the love of holiness. Regeneration 
includes, and in a Christian sense cannot be 
used without reference to, the relation to 
Christ, to the union of the soul by faith to 
Christ. The union with Christ is vital, and is 
what constitutes the new life." Syst. Theol. 

558, 9. 

Van Oosterzee. " The nature of a true con- 
version is apparent from the different descrip- 
tions and images, under which it is presented 
in Holy Scripture, viewed in the light of the 
reality of spiritual experience. From regener- 
ation conversion is only distinguished in form: 
it is the same thing, conceived there on the 



68 REGENERATION. 

Divine side, here on the human ; men must be 
born again by God, but they must themselves 
repent, though this be by the aid of a higher 
power. That this latter is not effected in all in 
the same manner, is evident." 645, 6. 

Dorner. ** Christianity has completed but 
one work — atonement, which through justifica- 
tion is made completely, not merely partially, 
man's own possession. Everything else, like 
regeneration, sanctification and glorification, is 
still left incomplete, nothing but the certainly 
efficacious principle of these being implanted 
in humanity.'' He makes regeneration the 
faith which appropriates justification. *^Faith 
is an inner movement of the entire soul to 
Christ." '' The Spirit of God restores to man 
his freedom, regeneration fixes the freedom as 
real freedom, leaves it no longer a vacillating 
power." IV, 186-230. 

Calvin. ''Repentance consists of two parts — • 
the mortification of the flesh and the vivifica- 
tion of the spirit. Both these branches of re- 
pentance are effects of our participation of 
Christ. In one word, I apprehend repentance 
to be regeneration, the end of which is the res- 
toration of the divine image within us ; which 
was defaced, and almost obliterated by the 
transgression of Adam. Whomsoever God 



THE NE W LIFE, 



chooses to rescue from destruction, them he 
vivifies by the spirit or regeneration." Inst. 

in, 3. 

Dr. Samuel Hopkins. ''The divine agency 
and operation, which is first, and lays the foun- 
dation for all right views and exercises in the 
person who is the subject, is called by divines 
regeneration. The holy views and exercises of 
the subject, in v/hich he receives Christ, or be- 
lieves on his name, is called cofiversion, and 
sometimes active conversion, to distinguish it 
from that previous operation and change 
wrought by the Spirit of God, in which God is 
the only agent, and man, the subject, does not 
act, but is perfectly passive." Ill, 546. 

Archbishop Leighton. " Now whether you 
call this renovation or change of the mind, re- 
pentance, or divine love, it makes no difference ; 
for all these, and. indeed, all the Christian graces 
in general, are at bottom, one and the same, 
and, taken together, constitute what we may 
call the health and vigor of the mind. But 
whatever name it is conveyed by, the change 
itself is effected by the right'hand of the Most 
High." Works, 68^ 



CHAPTER IV. 

Regeneration a Fact. 

While we are unable to trace the working of 
the Spirit of God in the transformation of the 
heart, we are able to trace the results of the 
work. So vital a change as that said to be pro- 
duced by the spirit-birth surely ought to make 
itself known : we believe it is known through 
clear and unmistakable effects. From the na- 
ture of the case, however, doubts on this point 
may be plausibly stated and ingeniously main- 
tained. Regeneration passes slowly into pub- 
lic life, and moral reforms may produce many 
of the effects ascribed to it. Still there is a 
regenerate life which cannot be counterfeited. 
It is common to refer to changes of personal 
character as evidence of implanted grace, and the 
evidence is on the whole unimpeachable. The 
Apostle Paul was by nature a Puritan, and one 
more ready to censure himself than any one 
else. But notwithstanding this self-criticism he 
claimed for himself a splendid Pharisaic right- 
eousness. This merit, however, he counted loss 
for Christ. His acquaintance with his Lord and 

(70) 



REGENERA TION A FACT. 71 

acceptance of his authority, absolutely reversed 
his course of conduct. He considered himself 
nothing except as Christ controlled him and 
formed his character. It may be said that others 
have been transformed as thoroughly as he, and 
that without resorting to a superhuman cause 
for explanation. A strong will, it is said, or 
some strong desire, has at times overcome the 
bent of nature. But Paul believed that it was 
not his own will or desire that moved him, and 
on this he is a good witness. He believed that 
God revealed his Son in him that he might 
preach him among the Gentiles. If some 
should say, in this he was deluded by his own 
excitable and imaginative temper, it can be 
replied that there is no proof of it, and the 
assumption IS purely gratuitous. But it is not 
necessary to discuss the Apostle's character 
or defend his opinions. Let each one judge of 
him as the facts require. 

Augustine is another character often referred 
to as furnishing marked evidence of renewal of 
the Spirit of God. He was a perfect contrast 
to Paul in native character. He was a voluptu- 
ary, fond of display, heedless of consequences, 
as lawless as Paul was strict. But he oyercame 
his passions and his pride through prayer and 
divine aid. He, too counted the things which 



72 RE GENERA TION. 

had been gain to him loss for the excellency of 
Christ Jesus his Lord. It may be, some 
will say that he, like Paul, in his uncontrolled 
enthusiasm, saw a divine cause where only a 
human cause was demanded. It is in any case, 
certain that his character was transformed from 
profligacy to sanctity. He thought, others 
thought, the change was due to the work of God 
on the heart. But extreme cases do not best 
illustrate the matter before us. Men of heroic 
mould, or men so before the world as to be im- 
pelled to heroic deeds, do not best set forth 
truths of general import, truths as really illus- 
trated in the humblest as in the most exalted 
life. There have been avaricious men so moved 
in view of the wants of those for whom Christ 
died that they have given of their possessions 
year by year, and with pleasure, to aid the 
neglected to a knowledge of the truth ; there 
have been obscure but pleasure-loving men who 
have taken up the cross and followed Christ ; 
there have been wronged and misunderstood 
men who have borne reproach for the love of 
Christ ; there have been those who had no 
thought that their deeds would be chronicled, 
who have kept the faith steadfast unto death 
in honor of the Lord ; men of calmest minds and 
soberest judgment have in times of trial said, 



RE GENERA TION A FACT, 73 

*'Here we stand; we must testify to that which 
we know." It is from such witnesses that the 
testimony to the transforming power of grace 
comes. And the sound of their voices comes 
up Hke the sound of many waters from all quar- 
ters of the earth. There is no question that 
this innumerable company believe themselves 
to have been renewed in heart by the regener- 
ating power of the Holy Ghost. If any should 
still hold that this is a delusion, though hon- 
estly entertained, the retort of the apostle will 
be of at least equal force. '' But the natural 
man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of 
God ; for they are foolishness unto him ; neither 
can he know them, because they are spiritually 
discerned. But he that is spiritual judgeth all 
things." 

There is evidence of the regenerating power 
of the Spirit of God afforded by broader and 
larger views than any connected with individual 
experiences. Ideas have been introduced into 
the world by the Christian religion which tes- 
tify to a new element in human life. Symonds, 
writing of the Renaissance,' says : The fine 
arts ^' had, before all things, to give form to the 
ideas evolved by Christianity, and to embody 

1 Renaissance in Italy. The Fine Arts, 6. 



74 RE GENERA TION, 

a class of emotions unknown to the ancients/' 
This was the problem set before artists at 
the opening of modern civilization. They 
were to provide forms of beauty for the Chris- 
tian sentiments profoundly apprehended but 
crudely expressed in the schools and cloisters 
of the Middle Ages. The artists gave atten- 
tion to some of the results of Christian doc- 
trines rather than the doctrines themselves ; 
but the fruits and flow^ers of truths which they 
cherished are evidence of the reality of the 
truths themselves. We notice now the ele- 
mentary doctrines rather than the forms of 
beauty. 

I. One of the ideas that has made a perma- 
nent lodgement in the human mind because 
of regeneration is that God is man's only 
authoritative judge. If he has renewed the 
soul, put his law in the heart, brought it into 
a state of obedience to his will, then we 
are not to be condemned, indeed not to be 
justified, without an appeal to him. Each act 
is to be referred to him, his decision is final 
with us. The mass of Christians live looking 
to the disclosure of the final day. It is a 
small thing to be judged by man's judgment. 
The one suspected by his fellows, at times 
despondent himself, will in his heart say to 



REGENERA TION A FACT. 75 

Christ, ''Thou knowest that I love thee." The 
whole of human life is raised by this sentiment 
above the earth and linked by its chief inter- 
ests to another world. 

2. Another of the ideas of regenerate human- 
ity is the expectation of fellowship with Christ. 
If he has redeemed us and renewed us, so that 
we shall be fitted for his dwelling-place, then 
he will doubtless come and take us to himself. 
The attitude of waiting and expectation has 
characterized the followers of Christ from the 
days of the Apostles. " Looking for that 
blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of 
the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ." 
Titus 2: 13. This longing to be with Christ 
is a sentiment of the redeemed soul ; it belongs 
to Paul not to Cesar ; it is the aspiration of 
John, not of Annas and Caiaphas. There is no 
full and discriminating view of Christ that is 
attractive to the natural heart : it is the Christ 
within us that reaches out to the Christ in 
heaven. 

3. Another of the Christian ideas established 
by regeneration, is the substantiality of faith. 
** Faith is the substance of the things hoped 
for." There are different degrees of faith, and 
it may have saving power while it is still falter- 
ing. It is the combined product of the intel- 



76 RE GENERA TION, 

lect and the heart. How much from the heart 
must enter into the composite sentiment to 
render it the means of our justification cannot 
be definitely stated, but there must be some 
degree of personal reliance. Faith, however 
does not stand complete when it is simply ac- 
cepted for righteousness. It becomes a sub- 
stance, the underlying material in which qual- 
ities inhere. As we hold to a substance in 
which the qualities of a block of granite inhere 
a base which is hard and colored and of a cer- 
tain form, friable, incompressible, etc., so we 
hold concerning the redeemed, that they are 
under God's care, that he will judge them here 
after, that he will reward the righteous and pun- 
ish the wicked, that he will gather in one the 
followers of Christ and bestow upon them the 
joys of salvation. These items, taken one by one, 
are fragmentary, open to question, apparently 
vague surmises. But the regenerate man has 
experiences which give these doctrines form 
and connection one with another, and, finally 
they combine in a unit, and with other doctrines 
form a scheme or system of truth which he 
calls his faith. His faith is the substance in 
which they inhere. He comes to believe them 
as doctrines not open to question, and as attri- 
butes of the faith which God has given him and 



REGENERA TION A FACT. 77 



on which he rests. So firm is this foundation, 
the Christian faith of the redeemed, that many 
have considered it the best established reahty 
entering into our human hfe. Many have ac- 
tually found their warrant for believing in the 
reality of the earth, of physical nature, in their 
Christian faith. It is no difficult thing to 
argue with plausibility that outer nature is a 
delusion, that the forms of things are but 
shadows, that sounds have their birth in the 
ear, that all about us is such stuff as dreams 
are made of; but the Christian thinker says 
that the renewal of his heart is a fact, and from 
this fact he starts in his scheme of philosophy 
as well as of theology. It cannot be doubted 
by any one that the chief corner-stone of phi 
losophy, — a philosophy rising above crude sci- 
ence, — is the existence of God. And no one 
has better assurance of the divine existence 
than he whose heart has been created anew. 
It is therefore true, that not only the church 
but the world, finds a support of its doctrines 
in the faith communicated to the saints. 

4. Another of the realities introduced into 
Christian life by regeneration is brought to 
view in the assertion of the Apostle Paul, 
(Rom. I : 14) : ''I am a debtor both to the 
Greeks, and to the Barbarians ; both to the wise, 



78 RE GENERA TION. 

and to the unwise." A fundamental doctrine 
of Christianity is the communion of saints. 
The followers of Christ are brethren ; they 
belong to one family and have a common in- 
heritance. The riches of grace — i, e., the hopes 
of the Christian, his assurances, his privilege of 
prayer, his peace, his fellowship, his reception 
of the Holy Ghost, — are the property of the 
household of God. The revelations, the vis- 
ions, the convictions may come through one, 
but the gift is for all ; to hoard w^ould be to 
nullify ; " It is more blessed to give than to 
receive." But when any fail to receive these 
gifts, it becomes the duty of those who pos- 
sess to bestow upon those who lack. Christ 
died for all ; if any are incapable of receiving 
the benefits of his death for lack of the spirit- 
birth and the spiritual suceptibility, those 
who serve the Divine Master are under bonds 
to open to them the way of the spirit-birth 
and to offer them the grace of God. Paul was 
a Steward of that grace ; it was not his to retain ; 
it ceases to be grace if it remain inactive ; it 
was his to communicate, and he would have 
been unfaithful to his calling if he had not 
made the proffer of salvation to those for whom 
Christ died. Hence he was literally a debtor 
to the heathen world. Here is a demonstra- 



REGENERATION A FACT, 79 

tion, if this statement is true, of the realness 
and substantiahty of the new Hfe. It opens 
new susceptibilities ; it creates new wealth ; it 
puts in office stewards, and clerks, and account- 
ants, and establishes a system of debt and 
credit in the realm of spirit life. 

5. Another of the ideas made real by the fact 
of regeneration is the incarnation. It is only re- 
newed humanity that has maintained a full and 
clear doctrine of the incarnation. The ancient 
heathens held, indeed, to incarnations of their 
gods, but had no fair and consistent view that 
any deity had become human flesh. The god 
had wings or became invisible at will ; was im- 
mortal or destroyed only by the annihilating 
power of a mightier god. But Christianity 
traces a divine life from birth to death, and finds 
it spotless at each step. By this means Chris- 
tianity maintains a realism of the body to- 
gether with its possible sinlessness, — a doctrine 
midway between Manicheism and a docetic 
spiritism. It holds that in the experience o 
the same person, a life of growth and decay is 
consistent with the highest and mightiest 
forces of spirit life. This doctrine does not 
accord with our natural feelings ; it would to 
the unrenewed mind seem a contradiction. 
The heathen would consider the very assertion 



80 RE GENERA TION. 

of growth and decay, a denial of divinity. The 
sentiment requires such an absorption of the 
material into the spiritual as is inconceivable 
to the mind unsanctified. The mind most 
richly endowed and most thoroughly sanctified 
feels itself incompetent to picture the physical 
form of the flesh partaking of the divine per- 
sonality, and makes little attempt to portray 
the bodily features of the divine man. Art has 
been fascinated by the Mother of our Lord, 
but has seldom been bold enough to attempt 
his portraiture. Most of the likenesses of 
him betray a sameness that evidences imita- 
tion and timidity. Human genius has felt it- 
self limited to the Madonna and the Child. 
But the reveling of art over these personalities 
proves that the faith of the church adheres 
firmly to the divine humanity. 

6. The fact of regeneration, — the truth that 
there is a spirit-birth by which one enters on a 
new life, — is attested by the contrast between 
Christian morals and secular morals. The mor- 
als of a worldy life and of a Christian life are, to a 
great extent, the same, but the schemes of mor- 
als in the two departments differ. Philosophy 
is not able to furnish a basis on which human 
morals may be exhaustively arranged in a 
scientific form. The Christian can lay down a 



REGENERA TION A FACT. 81 

principle of action by which all of moral con- 
duct may be tested. Mr. Martineau has treated 
of no less than seven types of ethical theory. 
The number of theories might be made much 
larger. We may, indeed, say that all moral con 
duct takes the form of duty, and is enforced by 
the conscience, but the conscience furnishes no 
law by which the entire conduct of man is to be 
guided ; it is obliged to resort to different rules 
in different departments of man's activity, and 
to enforce as its own demand that which is pre- 
viously demanded by some other authority. 
The morals of society go before any theory — 
are the prompting of the active powers of nature 
and never originate in the law by which they 
are judged. They are primarily the customs of 
men and society, as the name imports. Con- 
science selects and approves of certain customs, 
others it condemns. It has, however, no prin- 
ciple by which it can create or, to a great ex- 
tent, regulate customs. There may be customs 
— many of them — which are tolerated by con- 
science because they are duly established, 
which it would discountenance if they had not 
already acquired a standing. Conscience would 
not enforce with any original authority the ob- 
servance of the birthday of a king as a day of 
festivity, or the observance of the day of a na- 



82 RE GENERA TION, 

tion's independence as a day of civic and mili- 
tary celebration ; but when their observance 
has entered into a nation's morals, it may very 
well insist upon the continuance of the practice. 
There are certain relations in life which fur- 
nish their own law of moral conduct ; conscience 
must accept the law and the items of conduct 
must be accepted as so much entitled to a place 
in the accumulating morals of mankind. It is 
supposable that a father might impose duties 
on a son which the son would reject as not du- 
ties if they came from another source. An in- 
dolent and intemperate vagabond might be re- 
jected from a home of virtue and industry and 
thrown out to be supported by public charity. 
But a son would not be justified in turning 
his own father out of doors, even if he were a 
vagabond. There are many relations in life 
which in like manner create or give form to 
duties which must be accepted as portions 
of human morals, which yet do not fall 
under a priori theories of morals. Domestic 
life, social life, family traditions, inherited friend- 
ships all impose duties, and yet are accidental 
— not of the essence of humanity. Sometimes 
they exist, sometimes they are wanting, and 
when they exist are not of one type. There 
cannot, therefore, be a basis of morals which will 



REGENERA TION A FACT. 83 

involve these items and combine them with 
other duties in a scientific classification. 

Reference to different principles which afford 
each its own point of view from which morals 
may be surveyed, and each an independent 
standard by which they are to be tested, will 
show that a complete science of morals embrac- 
ing all as a unit is impossible. There are mor- 
als based on intuitive truths, such as the univer- 
sal claims of justice, the universal propriety of 
gratitude in response to kindnesses ; there are 
moral considerations connected with one's in- 
tentions when perhaps the wrong deed has been 
performed ; there are deeds that acquire an eth- 
ical quality from their utility; certain self-denials 
would be wrong if they would do no good, as a 
life among the Esquimaux ; certain deeds, again, 
demand attention and performance with divine 
authority, because they are expedient. An in- 
nocent man, suspected of a great crime, may 
not be under obligation to exculpate himself 
because of his own guilt, yet may feel it an im- 
perious duty to allay public excitement by dis- 
closing facts which, under other circumstances, 
it were better to keep secret. Sympathy 
also has its influence in the moral world. It 
may be almost at war with expediency and 
utihty, and may set aside duties that, but for 



84 RE GENERA TIO N. 

it, would be imperious. The moral require- 
ments it enforces may prevail over others so 
that they all consist together in harmony, yet 
they cannot all flow from the same source. A 
sense of propriety would also furnish the basis 
of many moral duties, yet not of the more 
serious and awe-inspiring duties that come up 
from the depth of one's nature. It has been 
the fashion sometimes to find the sum of all 
virtue in love, but the attempt has never been 
wholly successful, and has not been at all suc- 
cessful except the love be that of the regener- 
ate heart. There is a sinful as well as a holy 
love ; the love of money or the love of pre-em- 
inence has no claim to be the basis of the moral 
system. 

While secular morals are thus dependent 
upon circumstances and vary with the times, 
while they modify each other and at times con- 
tend in unsettled strife, the Christian can take 
them all up into a higher life and assign to each 
its place. They do not receive a scientific or- 
ganization at his hands, but they fall into place 
as Christian duties and Christian graces. He 
who is born of the Spirit has entered the family 
of God ; in this family perfect loyalty prevails, 
the might of the Divine Spirit is such, that 
those who have passed through the transforma- 



REGENERA TION A FACT. 85 

tion which he works are of kin to each other and 
to God. They form a sacred society which is 
through and through of one mind and heart. 
The great dominant trait of each is love to God, 
the one law that controls all is the will of God. 
Since the will of God is the divine creative en- 
ergy which has gone forth and formed the uni- 
verse of being and the energy which now pre- 
serves the world and in providence orders its 
affairs, obedience to that will is the discharge of 
human duties. The soul born of the Spirit has 
a new name and a new life, and if it does 
not perform new works, its works are 
made new by being transfigured and glorified 
in an absorption into processes going forth from 
the throne of God. The state of the soul uni- 
ted to the Spirit is sometimes described as the 
attitude of benevolence, the love of being in 
general, sometimes as a state of sympathy with 
the end for which God made the world, but it 
may be better conceived as a state of constant 
dependence on God, of unceasing communion 
with, and direction from, the Holy Ghost. So 
far as man's soul is brought into coincidence 
with the Spirit of God human duties are dis- 
charged spontaneously and the consequent 
traits of character, known in ethical language as 
virtues, are called fruits of the Spirit. President 



86 RE GENERA TION, 

Edwards says : ^^The graces of Christianity are 
all from the same spirit of Christ sent forth 
into the heart and dwelling there as a holy, and 
powerful, and divine nature ; and therefore all 
graces are only different ways of acting on the 
part of the same divine nature ; as there may be 
different reflections of the light of the sun ; and 
yet all in origin of the same kind of light, be- 
cause it all comes from the same source or body 
of light. Grace in the soul is the Holy Spirit 
acting in the soul, and thus communicating his 
own holy nature. As it is with water in the 
fountain, so here it is all one and the same holy 
nature, only diversified by the variety of 
streams sent forth from it. These streams must 
all be of the same nature, seeing they all thus 
come from the same source, and the difference 
of many of them whereby they have different 
names, is chiefly relative, and more from refer- 
ence to their various objects and modes of ex- 
ercise than from a real difference in their ab- 
stract nature.^ 

^ Christian Love, 397. 



CHAPTER V. 

AUTHOR OF REGENERATION. 

God is the sole author of regeneration. 
This is taught in the Scriptures and is easily 
proved from the nature of the work. When 
God works in men to will and to do of 
his good pleasure they are enabled to work 
out their own salvation. In turning from the 
world to the service of God man is active ; he 
turns in the exercise of his own energy ; this is 
his conversion, but he turns because it is a 
pleasure to him to do so. He acts, to use 
Edwards's language, in accordance with the 
strongest motive when he turns ; his choice is 
as the greatest apparent good. Heretofore 
choices of this kind have kept him in the ser- 
vice of the world. He has followed pleasure 
because it was the greatest apparent good, or 
pursued wealth because it was the greatest 
apparent good, now he serves God because 
that is the greatest apparent good. The 
change in the apparent good is due to a change 
in the man not a change in the objects of pur- 
suit, and the change is so radical, that it must 
be traced to a power without the man. He 

(87) 



88 REGENERATION, 

had no elements within out of which his new 
views have grown. The change within the 
soul is the work of God and is regeneration. 
The person who can make choices so wholly 
new must be a new creature. The preference 
of God above all other good is the preference 
of a heart, as that word is used in the Scrip- 
tures, not before within the man. It is now 
within because God has put it within. This 
change is a work wrought by the almighty 
power of God. No one can devise means by 
which it may be wrought. A friend may 
waken new emotions by entreaty ; truth may 
be stated with new clearness, but these do not 
affect soul affinities ; aversion to God remains 
aversion still. When this aversion becomes 
affection for and longing towards God the 
quality of the heart must be changed. This 
change of quality is the work of infinite skill 
and of a perfect knowledge of human nature. 
We are not to associate it with violence or dis- 
play of force, but with a subtle power that takes 
away the love of the world and, unobserved at 
the moment, infuses the love of God. It is a 
power which robs the will of its motive to 
rebel against its rightful Ruler and makes it 
obedient to the motives of godliness. When 
this change in the heart has taken place the 



AUTHOR OF REGENERA TION, 89 

soul has a new principle of action and turns 
naturally into a new course of conduct. Con- 
version is the prompt and inevitable result of 
regeneration. 

The Bible states this same truth, the divine 
authorship of regeneration, in many ways. It 
describes regeneration as a birth of the spirit, 
a birth by the will of God, a renewal by the 
Holy Ghost, a life by the words of Christ, a life 
by eating the flesh of Christ, a transformation, a 
resurrection, a quickening, a creation. The 
terms which designate a change of heart all 
express a work which only God can perform. 

The nature of the change in regeneration and 
the Scripture terms describing it warrant us 
in ascribing it to an immediate divine act. We 
certainly are not conversant with any means 
by which it can be effected. We know of 
no means except persuasion by which change 
in human purpose and conduct is produced, 
and in this case the change is not one 
which persuasion even tends to effect. If 
one is born from above the means of the new 
life are not earthly. If one loves that which 
he before hated, the reason is the soul has a 
new relish or a new affinity, the love is not in 
obedience to a command but a response to 
that without which is attractive and lovely. 



90 REGENERATION. 

If regeneration is an illumination of the mind 
then the mind sees and judges in accordance 
with new standards. There is no new object 
before the mind, but a new estimation is put 
upon the objects under consideration. If re- 
generation is faith, then the faith is a disposition 
to rest on the scheme of salvation as a substance ; 
and its firm reaHty, its power to support the 
soul, is known because of an assurance in the 
heart of the goodness of God which is at once 
an illumination of the mind and a love of him 
who first loved us. 

The need of God's power in regeneration 
is obvious from the nature of human sinful- 
ness. Sin comes to view in deeds which grow 
out of the natural inherited state. The 
promptings of a nature lead us to self-seeking, 
to disregard of the rights of others, to rejection 
of God's authority. No one can tell where 
the movement begins which leads to these 
results. The results are often reached before 
we are aware of it ; the process by which we 
are led to them is, to a great extent, unnoticed ; 
we have no thought of connecting moral char- 
acter with it, and the initiation of the move- 
ment takes place in the operations of nature 
passing in unconsciousness. If this basis of 
iniquity is to be removed, the origin of sin to 



AUTHOR OF REGENERATION. 91 

be eradicated, it must be done by some one 
who knows us better than we know ourselves, 
one who '* understands our thought afar off/' 
The Creator only can renew the soul in the 
elements of its being, he only can do the work 
when a new creation is demanded. 

The connection between man's sin and 
Satan also seems to require the interposition 
of God for its eradiction. As the new life 
comes from beyond man, so the disease that 
makes the new life necessary comes from be- 
yond man. Sin is not indigenous to humanity. 
It is an inoculated suspicion of God. This 
seems to be the first motion of sin in human- 
ity. In whatever form sin may appear it 
seems never to lose this primal quality. The 
man gathered up himself as if in self-defense 
against God. He raised the question of sep- 
arate and warring interests in his relation to his 
Maker. This sentiment did not originate in 
his mind but was instilled into it by a tempter 
who had found access to him. Sin which be- 
gan here has never been wholly separated from 
its extra-human source. Satan's suggestions 
have been repeated daily and hourly since the 
fall. Sin has been fomented by infernal agen- 
cies in all the history of the race. The amount 
of temptation to which men have been sub- 



92 REGENERATION. 

jected has been limited. God has restrained 
the adversary ; he afflicted Job by permission ; 
still this world has been the scene of his mach- 
inations and his triumphs. However strong 
men may be against him, he is yet called the 
god of this world, and too many are led cap- 
tive at his will. There is only one who is able 
to bruise him under his feet; — none but the 
divine man can destroy the works of the 
devil. In regeneration the tie that binds 
human action with superhuman influences is 
changed. The connection between man and 
Satan is severed, that between man and Christ 
is formed. There is no human power that 
can effect this change, it must be the work 
of God. 

The nature of human character shows that a 
change of heart must be the work of God. 

As a moral being the natural man already 
has a character, and that character practically 
throws off the authority of God. It accepts 
the world as the chief good, its affinity is with 
worldliness, and therefore its allegiance is to 
worldliness. The natural man says, must say, 
'' I love the world." This love which is the 
ultimate basis of character is not changed by 
a resolution or by a demonstration of its folly, 
it remains the rehsh, or the taste, or the 



A UTHOR OF REGENERA TION. 93 

affinity of the man ; if there is a certain willing 
against it, it is only conditional willing, not 
personal determination ; the love of the world 
is the will's choice, settled into an emotion 
and not subject to change through any volun- 
tary actions which grow out of it. If this love 
is changed, suppressed, it must be done by 
some power stronger than itself. Stronger 
than anything in man. 

If one should attempt a change of his own 
heart, the attempt would be abortive. The 
efTort to love and serve God would be in 
obedience to a command from without, and 
the act of obedience would be merely an act 
of legality, which can never be an act of love. 
We must obey God from love, not love as an 
act of obedience. Obedience is the proof of 
love, not the means of it. The law must be in 
the heart, the heart's law, obedience its free, 
spontaneous action, or there is no affinity 
between the soul and God. If the command 
to be obeyed is to be itself the expression of 
the heart, and the obedience the correspond- 
ing action of the heart, then the heart, the spirit 
of the man, must have some new principle of 
action within. The soul must put forth its 
acts of service from a new vantage ground, a 
precedent affinity for God. 



94 REGENERA TION. 

Love, then, as the basis of character in the 
natural man is defective, for it is pre-engaged in 
opposition to God ; and in service to God he is 
defective, for the service he aims at is legal, and 
so no service. God looks on the heart, does not 
ask for help, but for loving co-operation. 
Therefore, there does not come from humanity, 
either from its capacity to love, or its spiritual 
power of obedience to law, any proper accept- 
ance of God as Ruler and Friend. This brings 
us to the point of man's dependence on God. 
He must be born anew, receive the spirit-birth, 
be created anew, in order to fulfill the command 
that lies upon him. His duty has not changed, 
the call and command are in nowise different, 
the discovery of helplessness does not introduce 
any new essential element into the condition of 
sinful men. Men are always to aim at serving 
God and doing his pleasure, and to call on him 
for help in that which is beyond their power. 
This help he has promised, is ready to render, 
more than ready to bestow in full measure. 
The difficulty is, men are not willing to ask for 
it or to receive it, but in many cases it is 
granted. God brings the spirit into alliance with 
himself, so that it acts from a new principle. 
Here is the spirit-birth, and from this principle 
a turning to God takes place, and the man is 



A UTHOR OF REGENERA TION. 95 

converted. Or God illuminates the mind so that 
the love of the world is seen to be folly, and 
gives a new relish for spiritual things, so that 
worldliness is distasteful; and thus, to adopt 
an expression once common, ''He slays the sin- 
ner's enmity to divine things," and imparts to 
him an afifinity for them. 



CHAPTER VL 

CONVERSION. 

We are all called upon to turn from sin and 
to serve God. The actual turning is known 
as conversion. It is for the sake of good 
works, a holy life, that men are called by divine 
grace. The saints are chosen that they may 
** be holy and without blame ; '* the new crea- 
tion is a creation unto good works ; Christ 
*'gave himself for us, that he might redeem 
us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself 
a peculiar people, zealous of good works.'* 
Titus 2 : 14. Peter exhorts the disciples thus : 
*^ Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers 
and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which 
war against the soul, having your conversation 
honest among the Gentiles ; that, whereas 
they speak against you as evil doers, they may 
by your good works, which they shall behold, 
glorify God in the day of visitation.'' I Peter 
2: II, 12. The command that we should live 
holy lives, do good, avoid evil, is upon us 
always. It comes from the Bible, from the 
conscience, from the church, AH the author- 

(96) 



CONVERSION. 97 

ity which we acknowledge as having a right 
to impose duties upon us utters the same 
command, that we cease to do evil that we 
never fail to do well. And the time when we 
are to obey the comm^and is ever present. 
We have as much right to defer good works 
tor a lifetime as to defer them a moment ; we 
have as much right to live in sin fifty years as 
a half-hour. To turn to God, then, to convert, 
is the instant and pressing duty of each one. 
The chief duty, the one at the foundation of 
ail others, is to love God. This is the sum of 
the commandments ; when this command is 
obeyed, all are obeyed ; when this is disregarded, 
no duty is properly performed. Every person 
is therefore to set himself to loving God this 
moment. The question for each one is not. 
Can he do it ? but. Is that what he is called 
to do? and what he must aim at? what he 
is to struggle to do? The answer to this is 
not doubtful. Men are commanded to love 
God and serve him as they are commanded 
to deal justly with their neighbors. The Scrip- 
tures prescribe the highest duties precisely as 
they do the lowest, making no allowance for 
an inability to perform them. Moses gave to 
Israel the law which is summed up in love to 
God and love to man, and said, '' Set your 



98 RE GENERA TION, 

heart unto all the words which I testify unto 
you this day ; which ye shall command your 
children to observe to do, all the words of this 
law. For it is no vain thing for you, because 
it is your life." Deut. 32 : 46, 47. God said 
to Solomon after the dedication of the temple : 
^^ If my people which are called by my name, 
shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek 
my face, and turn from their wicked ways, 
then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive 
their sin, and will heal their land.'* II Chron, 
7 : 14. The fifty-fifth chapter of Isaiah is an 
exhortation to Israel to come to God and re- 
ceive the blessings which he is ready to be- 
stow; the seventh verse is: *^ Let the wicked 
forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his 
thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord, 
and he will have mercy upon him ; and to our 
God for he will abundantly pardon." Peter 
calls upon the people at Jerusalem to turn to 
God. Acts 3 : 19 is thus translated in the 
Revised Version : " Repent ye, therefore, and 
turn again, that your sins may be blotted out, 
that so there may come seasons of refreshing 
from the presence of the Lord." The apostle 
Paul expressed the terms of salvation thus: 
'' Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou 
shalt be saved." Acceptance of the govern- 



CONVERSION. 99 

ment of God as of supreme authority, immedi- 
ate submission to the will of God, absolute 
love of him as a person and a ruler are the 
first duties of every soul. 

This brings to view man's work. While 
God is the sole author of regeneration, men 
are to seek the Kingdom of God, to seek 
after righteousness, to strive to enter in at the 
strait gate. While God is not in covenant 
with the unregenerate as he is with those who 
have accepted the service of Christ — is not 
bound by pledge to answer their prayers as pre- 
sented in Christ's name — he does address 
the impenitent and invites them into his king- 
dom. He makes full promise of salvation to 
all who come to him. His call and his promise 
are ancient, older than the New Testament 
times. He says: Is. 45:22, '^ Look unto me 
and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: 
for I am God, and there is none else." Christ 
said, '' Come unto me all ye that labor and are 
heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Mt. 
11:28. The parable of the marriage of the 
King's son, Mt. 21 :2-i4, shows that men of all 
classes are invited to enter the kingdom of 
heaven, and that those who fail to enter have 
only themselves to blame for it. They reject 
the invitation, they prefer this world's occupa- 



100 REGENERA TION, 

tions, they excuse themselves on the ground 
that they have more important duties. These 
invitations are given to the impenitent, they 
are called upon to act, the promises of God are 
to be fulfilled on condition of their action. 
The actions of men are not directly efificient in 
the transforming work which the soul under- 
goes in regeneration, but may be indispensable 
to it. Coming within the sound of a herald's 
voice has no efficiency in the utterance of his 
message, but is indispensable to the hearing of 
it. The antecedents of regeneration, many of 
them human actions, come as truly within the 
decree of God as regeneration itself. There are 
among these antecedents, deeds and sentiments 
that are intimately associated with the work of 
the spirit on the heart, and they naturally ex- 
cite hopes that the performer of the deeds will 
be found among the accepted friends of God. 
There are positions which one may take in 
which there is a probability, not to say certainty, 
that the Spirit of God will meet him with con- 
verting power. Man may put forth deeds 
which seem to afford means of access to the 
heart, which the Spirit uses in his work. The 
divine power is not limited to means of any 
kind, but acts in methods, as observation shows, 
which have some degree of uniformity. The 



CONVERSION, 101 

question arises, Can man put forth the deeds 
that seem to meet with response from the Spirit 
of God? 

We may reply, many men can. It is true that 
all the members of our race are by nature averse 
to God, they do not love him, or his government, 
or his way of saving men. The relish for these 
things is not in the heart, and no act of will can 
put it there. They may for some purpose pre- 
tend to possess it, but it is still absent, and of 
such God says : they draw near me with the 
lips, but the heart is far from me. Then there 
are men who are averse to the followers of 
Christ and could not prevail upon themselves 
to associate with them ; there are those who 
despise the gospel of Christ and will not give 
it a sober thought, just as there are some who 
despise profane revelling and will not even 
debate the question whether they shall indulge 
in it. But the great majority of men are not 
mad in intellect though they are depraved in 
taste — especially the relish for righteousness. 
The natural man can examine the evidences of 
Christianity, he can study the Bible, he can 
estimate the value of earthly pleasures, he can 
see the superiority of the pleasures of a godly 
life, he can confess that his pursuit of the world 
is folly. These things do not change his aver- 



102 REGENERA TION. 

sion to true piety of heart, any more than a 
desire of health gives one a reHsh for bitter 
and nauseous drugs. The heart by nature 
hates confession of sin, penitence, entreaty, 
confession of helplessness. But one's convic- 
tions may be against himself and he may long 
for deliverance from himself. He may wish 
that his pleasures and affinities were wholly 
reversed. It is perfectly within the reach of 
candid men to condemn themselves, to re- 
nounce all hope of ultimate pleasure in their 
worldly pursuits, to study and admire the 
scheme of salvation. Such a state of mind is 
utterly devoid of divine grace, yet it is an 
acceptance of certain truths which are associ- 
ated with the doctrines of grace. And one 
might go much farther than this, he might 
so despair of the world as to be repelled 
by it, he might so admire a Christian life as to 
long after it, he might so desire to understand 
the way of life as to make the Bible his chief 
study, he might so hope that he should be- 
come a true child of God as to give himself 
to the duties of Christian life, prayer and 
praise ; he is able to do all these things in 
the unregenerate state. It may be that no one 
ever does come into such a state of mind 
except through what is called prevenient grace, 



CONVERSION. 103 

but it is no impossibility to the natural man. 
And here we have the answer to the question, 
whether one can take an attitude which ren- 
ders his regeneration by the Holy Spirit prob- 
able. We could have no doubt that God would 
bring into his own house one thus waiting at 
the doors. It would require the same work 
of almighty power to remove his aversion of 
heart to holiness that is required in every other 
case, but we know that God is disposed to save 
men, has promised to save, is eager to save, and 
we should have confidence that he would save 
in instances like those supposed. Indeed in 
such instances we should believe, though the 
supposed state of mind is possible through the 
promptings of reason, that God had gone be- 
fore, by the power of the Spirit, and wakened 
the emotions to which he would respond with 
regenerating grace. 

If there are positions which one can take in 
which there is a high degree of probability that 
he will be made the subject of gracious influ- 
ences, not less is it true that Christian men en- 
dued with the Holy Spirit are able to affect others 
and secure manifestations of converting power 
among those whom they address. When Paul 
preached to the Thessalonians the gospel came to 
them not in word only, but in power and in the 



104 REGENERA TION. 

Holy Ghost. Christ takes up his abode with 
men so that they are actuated and inspired by 
him. And the presence of Christ is the presence 
of the Holy Spirit. The good man's body is the 
temple of the Holy Ghost. Some men are so 
endued with the Divine Spirit that they mani- 
fest the supernatural indwelling by their words 
and looks. At such times they exercise an 
influence over some minds that is more than 
human. Though the Spirit may move men 
by a power exercised without visible means, as 
Paul was overwhelmed when on the way to 
Damascus, still it seems the ordinary method 
of God to enter the impenitent heart through 
the penitent heart. It has pleased God by 
the foolishness of preaching to save them that 
believe. It has pleased him to reach men 
through men. The Holy Spirit seems to 
sanctify human sympathy and make it the 
vehicle by which he passes from the regenerate 
heart to the heart to be regenerate. All the 
means of access by which one person presses 
himself upon another may be made sacred as 
paths over which the Holy Spirit moves to 
penetrate the soul and bring it into fellowship 
with the saints. The Holy Spirit is in the 
earth, he is with the people of God, working 
with them, responding to their prayers, helping 



CONVERSION. 105 

them in their infirmities, praying with them, 
infusing into them feelings which they can 
express only in groaning not to be put into 
words, and it is within the range of his influ- 
ence of this kind that sinners are most numer- 
ously converted. We cannot doubt that God 
often responds to the entreaties of unregener- 
ate men, but we cannot affirm the certainty 
of regenerating influences in response to such 
supplications as we can in response to the 
prayers of his people. When they unite in 
address to the throne of grace we know that 
some movement will be made. The prayer 
will prevail, the word as preached by those 
thus in league with God will not return void. 

We can say, therefore, that the use of means 
in the spiritual world is as sure to be product- 
ive of good fruits as in the natural world. We 
cannot tell which shall prosper this or that, but 
we know that seed-time and harvest will not 
fail. We are dependent on God for the in- 
crease of the field, for daily bread, for each 
moment of life, we are not more dependent for 
converting power bestowed by the Spirit. 
We know that God is more ready to give the 
latter than the former. As men are not dis- 
couraged in plowing and planting so they 
should not be in teaching the truths of the 



106 RE GENERA TION. 

gospel and calling men into the Kingdom 
of God. 

An appeal to facts would show that nothing 
is more productive of good results than spirit- 
ual labor. The glory of the Father is that the 
disciples of Christ bear much fruit. The entire 
scheme of the gospel is ordered for the salva- 
tion of men. If it should at first seem that the 
result of human effort is uncertain because re- 
generating grace depends on the gift of God, 
on second thought it will appear that the large- 
ness of the result is due to the fact that it is 
God who bestows mercy. He is ready to do 
abundantly above all that we can ask or think. 
God furnishes a divine power to men that they 
may work successfully in building up his king- 
dom. We preach Christ, whom God has 
appointed a Saviour, the wisdom of God and 
the power of God unto salvation. Besides 
Christ, the effective truth and demonstration of 
God's love, the Holy Spirit is given as the aid 
and helper of the followers of Christ. Through 
him the preacher at times exercises a superhu- 
man power. The apostles were to wait at Jeru- 
salem till they were endued with power from 
on high. The Lord had said to his disciples 
before his ascension, ''Ye shall receive power 
after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you ; 



CONVERSION. 107 

and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jeru- 
salem and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and 
unto the uttermost part of the earth/' ' All 
these promises have been manifoldly fulfiled. 
Preachers have had power. Sinners have been 
converted when men have worked in their be- 
half. God has regenerated souls when his truth 
has been preached. If anything can be proved 
it is proved that earnest work leads men . to 
Christ, — languid effort is comparatively fruitless. 
No exact ratio can be fixed between effort and 
the salvation of men, but that regenerating 
power accompanies effort it would be the part 
of blindness to deny. 

The life of David Brainard furnishes illustra- 
tions of the means by which the impenitent 
are roused and brought under the influence of 
the Spirit of God. In speaking of the difficul- 
ties which he encountered in preaching to the 
Indians he notices as very trying the stupid- 
ity and indifference of his interpreter. But 
when his hearers began to be affected, became 
sober, attentive, and finally concerned, he 
makes this entry in his diary : '' Went to the 
Indians and discoursed to them near an hour, 
without any power to come close to their 

lActs I : 8. 



108 REGENERA TION. 

hearts. But at last I felt some fervency, and 
God helped me to speak with warmth. My 
Interpreter also was amazingly assisted ; and 
I doubt not but that the Spirit of God was 
upon him ; though I had no reason to think 
he had any true and saving grace, but was 
only under conviction of his lost state ; and 
presently upon this most of the grown persons 
were much affected, and the tears ran down 
their cheeks. ^' One old tnan^ I suppose an 
hundred years old, was so much affected, that 
he wept, and seemed convinced of the impor- 
tance of what I taught them."* Of a service 
some weeks later he says : '' In the afternoon 
it pleased God to grant me great freedom and 
fervency in my discourse ; and I was enabled 
to imitate the example of Christ in the text, 
who stood and cried. I think I was scarce 
ever enabled to offer the free grace of God to 
perishing sinners with more freedom and plain- 
ness in my life. There were many tears in 
the assembly ; and I doubt not but that the 
Spirit of God was there, convincing poor sin- 
ners of their need of Christ." ^ About six 
months later he writes : *' I discoursed upon 

^Life of Brainard, p. 177. 
2 Page 185. 



CONVERSION, 101) 



Luke 14: 16-23, and was favored with uncom- 
mon freedom in my discourse. There was 
much visible concern among them (the Indians), 
while I was discoursing pubHcly ; but afterwards, 
when I spoke to one and another more partic- 
ularly, whom I perceived under much concern, 
the power of God seemed to descend upon the 
assembly 'like a mighty rushing wind^' and 
with astonishing energy bore down all before 
it. I stood amazed at the influence which 
seized the audience almost universally ; and 
could compare it to nothing more aptly than 
the irresistible force of a mighty torrent or 
a swelling deluge, that with its insupportable 
weight and pressure bears down and sweeps 
before it whatever comes in its way. The 
most stubborn hearts were now obliged to 
bow."^ His own idea of power through the 
Spirit he expresses thus : '' When ministers 
feel these special gracious influences on their 
hearts^ it wonderfully assists them to ceme 
at the consciences of men, and, as it were, to 
handle them ; whereas, without them, what- 
ever reason and oratory we make use of, we 
do but make use of stumps instead of hajids!' 
Edwards remarks in his reflections at the close 
of the Memoirs, that there was scarcely an 

^ Page 209. 



110 REGENERATION, 

instance in which his days of fasting and 
prayer were not followed with a remarkable 
blessing ; but adds, *' when he set about this 
duty he did it in good earnest ; stirring up 
himself to take hold of God and continuing 
instant in prayer, with much of the spirit of 
Jacob, who said to the angel, I will not let 
thee go except thou bless me."^ The ''good 
earnest " of which Edwards speaks is illustrated 
in the following from his diary : '^ God enabled 
me so to agonize in prayer that I was quite 
wet with sweat, though in the shade and cool 
wind. My soul was drawn out very much for 
the world ; I grasped for multitudes of souls/' 
The Memoirs of President Charles G. Finney 
exhibit on almost every page the effect of the 
most energetic effort, in dependence upon the 
work of the Divine Spirit, in the conversion of 
men. A few sentences from this work will 
sufficiently illustrate this point. '' I spoke 
with many persons that day, and I believe the 
Spirit of God made a lasting impression upon 
every one of them. I cannot remember one 
whom I spoke with, who was not soon after 
converted."^ '' He (a ministerial friend) had 
fallen short of receiving the baptism of the 

^ Page 240. 
2 Autobiography of Finney. 



CONVERSION. Ill 

Holy Ghost, which is indispensable to minis- 
terial success.'* '' Without the direct teaching 
of the Holy Spirit, a man will never make 
much progress in preaching the gospel." ^ ** In 
regard to my own experience, I will say that 
unless I had the spirit of prayer I could do 
nothing. If even for a day or an hour I lost 
the spirit of grace and supplication, I found 
myself unable to preach with power and effici- 
ency, or to win souls by personal conversa- 
tion." '" Of his labor in one place he says : 
" The spirit of prayer in the meantime had 
come powerfully upon me, as had been the 
case for some time with Miss S — . The pray- 
ing power so manifestly spreading and increas- 
ing, the work soon took on a very powerful 
type ; so much so that the word of the Lord 
would cut the strongest men down, and render 
them entirely helpless. I could name many 
cases of this kind.'' ^ Commenting on a very 
effective series of services he say^ : *' Sinners 
were not encouraged to expect the Holy Ghost 
to convert them, while they were passive ; and 
never told to wait God's time, but were taught, 
unequivocally, that their first and immediate 

^ Page 26. 

^Page55, 142. 

^ Page 229. 



] 1 2 RE GENERA TION. 

duty was, to submit themselves to God, to 
renounce their own will, their own way, and 
themselves, and instantly to deliver up all that 
they were, and all that they had, to their right- 
ful owner, the Lord Jesus Christ. They were 
taught here, as everywhere in those revivals, 
that the only obstacle in the way was their 
own stubborn will ; that God was trying to 
gain their own unqualified consent to give up 
their sins, and accept the Lord Jesus Christ as 
their righteousness and salvation/" Yet Mr. 
Finney notices one instance in which he did 
not think '' the conviction of sin sufficiently 
ripened to make it wise to urge an immediate 
acceptance of Christ.'"^" He also says concern- 
ing public services on one occasion : *^ I was 
going on from night to night, but had not 
thought my somewhat new and select audience 
yet prepared for me to call for any decision, on 
the part of inquirers." ^ 

Dr. A. J. Gordon derives this lesson from 
the teachings of George Miiller : '^The short- 
est way to our neighbor's heart is through the 
gates of heaven." And of William Grimshaw, 
pastor of Haworth, he says, that when he came 

^ Page 163. 
2 Page 311. 
^ Page 36Q. 



CONVERSION. 113 

to his parish, having twelve communicants, 
*' he could ride half a day on horseback towards 
either point of the compass without meeting 
a single serious soul. But as this Spirits-bap- 
tized pastor began to preach, such power at- 
tended his ministry, that where at first he 
found hardly more than a score of worshippers, 
the church now became so crowded that many 
had to stand without and listen through the 
windows. His w^ords were like a flame of fire, 
and as he preached ' it was amazing to see and 
hear what weeping, roaring and agony many 
people w^ere seized with at their apprehension of 
their sinful state and the wTath of God,' ^ * * 
His spiritual communion meanwhile was so 
exalted that he sometimes had to ask the 
Lord to stay his hand, lest his mortal frame 
should be overpowered." ^ The communicants 
in Grimshaw's sparsely settled parish rose from 
twelve to twelve hundred. 

The life of Rev. John G. Paton, missionary 
to the New Hebrides, presents in a most re- 
markable way the efficacy of the ordinary 
means of grace. The inhabitants of the island 
of Aniwa became almost wholly Christian 
under his influence. And the seed which he 
sowed in Tanna afterward bore fruit. The 
1 The Two-fold Life, p. 207, 8. 



114 REGENERATION, 

heathenism of these South Sea Islanders did 
not differ greatly from that of the Indians to 
whom Brainard preached, but the method of 
conversion was very different. The Holy 
Spirit wrought upon the minds of Brainard's 
hearers, so that they were in great distress of 
soul under deep conviction of sin. Paton 
allied himself with Jehovah as the God of 
Providence. He faced the greatest dangers 
with the calmest assurance that Jehovah would 
take care of him. Often expecting instant 
death he preserved the utmost coolness, assert- 
ing that his God would certainly punish any 
wrong that was done him. Events which were 
favorable to his mission were attributed at 
once to God. Untoward events, he firmly 
asserted, would be overruled for the further- 
ance of the gospel. His alliance with Provi- 
dence came to be a positive fact, palpable and 
obtrusive before the minds of the heathen, and 
finally became a means by which the island 
was perfectly Christianized. One of the chiefs 
for a time rejected the missionary's idea of 
God, and forbade the missionary access to his 
village with his pestilent teachings. He 
denied that there was any such being as Jeho- 
vah. But two orphan children from that vil- 
lage came under the care of the missionary 



CONVERSION, 115 



and his wife, and their visits to their old home 
broke down opposition. The chief's wife 
came to the worship one day and said : 
•* Nerwa's opposition dies fast. The story 
of the orphans did it. He has allowed me to 
attend the church, and to get the Christian's 
book." 

Pastor Harms (Ludwig Harms) seems to 
have been the most efiicient of modern Ger- 
man preachers in leading men to Christ. At 
the age of thirty-six he became colleague pastor 
with his father at Hermannsburg, a town near 
Hanover. His work has given the town a 
reputation through the world. He preached 
steadily to crowded congregations, the com- 
municants in his church numbered nine thou- 
sand, though the population of the town was 
only thirty-five hundred. There were no 
seasons of excitement, no marked awakenings 
during his ministry, but by his personal power 
he drew and held the people to himself in such 
a way that his influence pervaded the entire 
community and thoroughly transformed it in 
religious and moral life. 

The central element of his power was his 
love for his people. His earnest longing for 
their good with an absolute forgetfulness of 
self opened a way to their hearts. His sincer- 



116 RE GENERA TION, 

ity in proclaiming the gospel, his firm faith in 
its promises and threatenings, carried convic- 
tion to his hearers. While a student these 
words : ^^And this is life eternal, that they 
may know thee the only true God, and Jesus 
Christ, whom thou hast sent,** suddenly flashed 
through his mind like a beam of light. He 
was permanently inspired by the words as 
Luther had been by the words : ^^ The just shall 
live by faith.'* He came in immediate contact 
with the people, visiting from house to house, 
opening his own house to all comers. His 
study was thronged for three hours every Sun- 
day by the coming and going of those who 
sought instruction and counsel. He under- 
stood the people thoroughly, peasant life and 
peasant feeling ; he had perfect command of 
the popular language, happy skill in narrative 
and a remarkable ability to address the masses. 
With such a basis for pulpit work his sermons 
were the chief source of his power. He was 
what would be called a faithful preacher. He 
denounced sins unsparingly, he used concrete 
terms, and left the sinner no escape. *^As few 
others, Harms preached from the life and for 
the life/* 



APPENDIX I. 

The true character of faith may be understood from 
a study of the ordinary faith of men. The natural man 
has faith in himself and in the world. Men who occupy 
themselves with the business and pleasures of the world 
have faith in their plans and in nature, so far as it is 
expected to respond to their plans. We hear such ex- 
pressions as " faith in humanity," " faith in the perfecti- 
bility of nature," " faith in the future," " faith in the 
ultimate destiny of the race." We may picture to our- 
selves a young man just entering on his career of re- 
sponsible life, asking how he shall work out his destiny, 
or perhaps better, achieve the realization of what his 
nature craves. He recalls the experiences of his father, 
he contemplates the attempts and successes of honored 
and influential men, and selects both the pathway and 
the goal that please him best. He believes, though he 
has seen many defects, that, by avoiding some errors 
into which others have fallen, he can by industry 
and reasonably good fortune, reach the goal of his 
ambition. Here is his intellectual faith. He at once 
adopts the plans he has devised, he earnestly and 
energetically pursues the course he has marked out, his 
will and affections coincide with his intellect. Here 
is his practical faith. This man's repose on nature and 
confidence in it is as truly faith as any human state and 
sentiment can be. In ordinary cases the faith is not 
developed in the way supposed, practical faith precedes 
intellectual and is often the cause of it. The child is 
brought up to an occupation or a course of life, grows 
into it, trusts it, loves it, lives by it, and then forms 
theories concerning it. But in this case as in that more 

(117) 



nS APPENDIX, 



deliberately formed, there is a true and living, — so far 

as this world is concerned, — living faith. This might 
be said to be faith in the old Adam. We may designate 
by that term the common inheritance of humanity that 
descends from generation to generation. Men are sub- 
stantially alike in all ages. They have the same hopes 
and fears, the same aims, the same likes and dislikes in 
every nation and in every period of history. The un- 
covering of an ancient city, for centuries forgotten 
brings to light the fact that thousands of years ago men 
ate and drank, bought and sold, had their feasts and 
celebrations, their worship and their revelry as they do 
now. Children were pleased with the same toys 
women adorned themselves with the same ornaments, 
men gave themselves to the same contests in the days 
of Pompeii as at the present time. The substance of 
humanity remains the same, the difference is in the 
accidents. It might be said the spinal column of hu- 
manity is one. This spinal column might be called the 
old Adam. Men, as they come and go, put their trust 
for this life, and the life to come, — so far as they think 
of it apart from religious doctrines, — in humanity as it 
is common to all men in the old Adam. 

In the true Christian faith the second Adam is sub- 
stituted for the first. We come to the Lord Jesus Christ 
and adopt his ways. We confess that the world is a 
failure. Its highest pleasures are not unalloyed and 
they soon pass away. No one can make a heaven of 
this world. The realization of human ideals by means 
of anything this world affords is impossible. With this 
conviction we resort to Christ. We accept his views 
of life and of death, his views of this life and of the life 
to come. We adopt the duties he points out, we accept 
the promises which he makes. This is faith in him. Our 
faith in the old Adam is our destruction, our salvation 
is our faith in the new. The faith in neither case is 
simply conviction of the intelligence, it includes the 



APPENDIX, 119 

adoption of the intelligence as the guide of action. The 
consent of the heart and the resolve of the will accom- 
pany the conviction. A stronger faith is required in 
the religious than in the worldly life, but this does not 
change its nature. In the worldly life we have houses 
and lands, food and raiment, plans and realizations 
which are palpable to sense and undoubted facts ; but in 
the spiritual life we are obliged to make our faith the 
substance of the things hoped for and the evidence of 
things not seen. It is true we modify the earthly 
through the spiritual, we have houses of God, we have 
songs of the Sanctuary, we have a divine citizenship 
but when we have made the most of the forms of 
worship it is still true that we are saved by hope, 
and it doth not appear what we shall be. The breadth 
of the faith does not, however, change its character ; 
it remains the trust of the entire being to a system of 
doctrine and a method of life. 

This faith which rests on the Lord Jesus Christ is a 
new form of spiritual life. It enlarges the range of 
one's spiritual activities by making the heavenly reali- 
ties, — God, the future life, future blessedness, — present 
realities with power over the thoughts and the conduct. 
This opens to the soul a new range of activity in which 
new powerful motives are operative. The world of 
spiritual life on which the soul enters by this faith dif- 
fers from its former spiritual world as much as that 
differs from the world of flesh. The spiritual world of 
the unregenerate is a world without God, centered in 
self, not in harmony with the infinite, eternal realm 
where God's will is accepted as law. Faith therefore 
carries one outside his own spiritual world into a new 
world, and both enlarges his range of spiritual life and 
subjects his former spirit-world to that which he now 
enters. 

This faith is sometimes said to be a new faculty of 
knowledge. It rather brings into exercise new powers 



120 APPENDIX. 



of mind, and brings the soul into contact with new 
objects. It brings the soul into communion with God. 
It opens to the soul new experiences and, with the ex- 
perience, new knowledge. The experiences which come 
to the regenerate soul through faith afford it new 
views of all religious doctrines, specially of the glory of 
God and the grace manifested in the scheme of redemp- 
tion. Enlarged knowledge imparts depth and intensity 
to the religious emotions, while the emotions in turn 
strengthen the intellectual convictions of the truth. In 
the end it comes to be true, that the Christian finds in 
himself the strongest evidences of Christianity ; he 
even attains an assurance that lends its aid to his belief 
in the moral and physical realities of the world. 

Imparting true faith in the Lord Jesus Christ is regen- 
eration, or is the Spirit-birth, and is the work of the 
Holy Ghost. But there are positions often taken by the 
human soul apart from special influences of grace which 
seem like movements towards the true faith. The soul 
often sees the folly of reliance upon the world. It de- 
spairs of the old Adam. It says of temporal enjoy- 
ments, " Vanity and vexation of spirit." From this 
point there are two steps possible. One may in the 
state of despair of the world look to God with longing 
desire to be delivered from the bondage of corruption, 
with the intellectual belief that there is a perfect deliv- 
erance possible through Jesus Christ, or one may 
assume that the God who made the soul will, after the 
enjoyments of earth are ended, open to it another sphere 
of activity and enjoyment in another world. The latter 
is the poetic faith, the philosophic faith, but not the 
Christian faith. This is the politician's faith, the sol- 
dier's faith : its sentiment is : " God secures the right and 
takes care of ther ighteous." It might be asked, which 
is nearer the true Christian faith, this faith of philoso- 
phy or the simple despair of one renouncing the world } 
But an answer can hardly be given. One knowing the 



APPENDIX. 121 



way of salvation would be departing from God to adopt 
this faith of philosophy, but the unenlightened mind 
struggling after God may, perhaps, in heathen lands, 
often have found uncertain and indefinite trust the 
ground on which the Divine Spirit has met him with 
the grace bestowed through an unknown Saviour. 



APPENDIX II. 

God commands all men to be holy. The requirement 
is no less imperious before the second birth than after 
it. Is God just in making this demand ? The discus- 
sion of this question is "the conflict of ages." It is 
possible to make a difference between the demand made 
upon the natural man and that made upon the spiritual 
man, since the former is called upon to obey law and 
the latter to follow the promptings of the new nature, 
yet this difference is not of importance here, since holi- 
ness in either case meets the requirement of God. How 
can God require of man a life of spiritual holiness 
before he is born of the Spirit ? is the question which 
presses itself upon every mind, and everywhere occa- 
sions utmost perplexity. I shall attempt no solution of 
the problem, but merely notice some of the more promi- 
nent solutions offered. 

I. It may be denied that the problem before us is one 
of practical import. If holiness is defined ideal human 
perfection, and sin is looked upon as the innocent 
weakness of an undeveloped state, then the requirement 
to be holy is simply a prompting to go forward in the 
development of nature. In this case the Spirit-birth 
would not be properly a birth but an attainment 
achieved through struggle and discipline. The com- 
mand to be holy would really be binding only on the 
favored few, while the mass of the race could be ex- 
pected to seek only the comforts of a tolerable existence, 
and to leave the world none the better for its experiences. 

This view accords well with a pantheistic philosophy, 
and is readily allied with, though not necessarily im- 
plied in any of the forms of Monism. If God is the 

(122) 



APPENDIX. 123 

soul of the world going through a development, man is 
one of the stages of development and is neither to be 
praised nor blamed for what he is. Rebuke, encourage- 
ment, command, are means to be used in the develop- 
ment, but have no meaning except as motive forces, and 
have no authority except as a higher development may 
become an example for a lower. 

There are many who, without regard to any scheme 
of philosophy, interpret the experiences of life as a dis- 
cipline. God is a father educating his children. The 
doctrine of the Christian is that the trials of life, after 
regeneration and adoption into the family of God, are 
chastisements, not punishments; Heb. 12:5-11. Those 
who estimate life by ethical standards rather than re- 
ligious, are apt to apply this Christian judgment to the 
natural life and find in the ill besetments which precede 
the Spirit-birth a discipline not a punishment. Such a 
view is not very fully in accord with the ordinary doc- 
trine of sin and ill-desert, may often be held in opposi- 
tion to it, but is often entertained as a sentiment rather 
than as a part of a scientific scheme. It may embrace 
much of truth in practical life, but is too vague to be of 
value in rigid philosophical expositions of truth. 

II. It may be maintained that God is not unjust in 
requiring holiness of the natural man because he does 
not require anything impossible. Many shades of 
thought are included in this general statement. 

I. Pelagians make each man, in himself, a complete 
whole and maintain that he is able to do all that God 
requires him to do. Their doctrine maintains that man 
inherits by birth no essential hindrance to a holy life, 
that any untoAvard accidents may be resisted and re- 
pelled, and that all may, and many do, keep the whole 
law. This view has never received the assent of the 
Christian church, it has never carried with it the con- 
victions of profound thinkers or of men of deep and 
broad human sympathies. The heart of humanity has 



1^4 APPENDIX. 



ever been oppressed with the belief that the race natu- 
rally drifts into sin and guilt. 

2. Another view, known as the New England view 
but appearing more or less distinctly throughout the 
church, is, that man has the natural ability to keep the 
law of God. This ability renders him responsible for 
every moral delinquency, yet such is his natural tend- 
ency to evil that it is certain, he never will, of him- 
self, perform a single absolutely sinless act. Man's 
moral impotence is such that it is certain that every 
moral act will be unholy, while his natural powers are 
such that he is justly required to be holy in thought, 
word, and deed. Practically it is necessary that man be 
regenerated in order to keep the law of God, naturally 
it is not necessary. This view, though ably advocated, 
has never received the cordial assent of the church. It 
separates the action of the will from its motive force 
more than is practicable in real life. Some attempts have 
been made to adjust the theory to the practical work- 
ings of the will, but these have been repudiated by the 
advocates of the theory themselves. It has been held 
that the will can choose from a state of indifference 
however powerful the motives to a given choice may be, 
but this has generally been considered as no choice at 
all. Ritschl represents man as possibly a world in him- 
self, a world beside the world in which we live, and 
holds that when man asserts himself, realizes his high 
privilege, he is renewed, regenerated, a new creature. 
On the ground of this possibility man is commanded to 
be perfect, in the exercii^^^e of this power he is perfect. 
But this view is not really different from the Arminian 
doctrine of the liberty of indifference. 

III. It is maintained that God is just in requiring man 
to be holy though unable to obey the law, because he 
has lost the power of obedience through his own fault. 
Man was created with powers adequate to his obliga- 
tions, he may now be held to the same obligations 



APPENDIX. 125 



though he has thrown away his powers. This view is 
on the whole more widely and more generally accepted 
than any other. It however does not perfectly satisfy 
the mind, as is evident from the different forms in which 
it is presented. The more prominent forms will be 
noticed. 

1. It is held by some that men are the fallen beings of 
another world brought here that they may enjoy a 
second probation. The supposition is, that each man 
fell for himself, forfeited the privileges of an obedient 
subject of God's government, and might have been 
justly consigned to hopeless punishment. But God in 
mercy gives to the fallen a chance of recovery and 
restoration. This view is associated with Origen and 
has recently been advocated by Dr. Edward Beecher. 
It is beset with so many difficulties that it can never be 
popularly accepted. Julius Miiller has maintained that 
men sin in a timeless state, and thus are in time sin- 
ners from the first. This I consider simply the adoption 
of the liberty of indifference to account for the fall of 
man instead of adopting it as a ground of his responsi- 
bility. It is equally objectionable in either case. 

2. The theory known as Augustinian maintains that 
all men partook of that act by which Adam lost his 
integrity, so that individually they lost their integrity. 
And as Adam was not excused from obedience to law 
because he threw away the power, so his posterity are 
not excused. In Adam the race apostatised from God, 
and each one is held responsible for the consequences 
of the rebellion. God may therefore require all his 
human subjects to bie holy while not one has the power 
to be holy. 

3. The Federal theory teaches that the race is so 
related to Adam that his act of apostasy is justly im- 
puted to his posterity. The relation here is based on a 
covenant, not on the unity of the spiritual substance. 
Adam as head of the race was its representative, and 



126 APPENDIX, 

what he did maj be charged upon those whom he repre- 
sented, those in whose place he stood. God may, it is 
held in this case, justly hold men responsible for a life 
to which they have been made incompetent by their 
sponsor. 

This theory differs very little from the Augustinian 
That seems at first thought to accord more fully with 
natural justice : this has a broader ethical basis and is 
more affiliated with government and law. Men of the 
present day will have but little choice between these 
two ways of being made sinners. The vital question is, 
Are they responsible for the use of faculties which they 
have lost ? 

IV. It is possible to hold that God as a sovereign may 
do as he pleases with his creatures. He may make men 
sinners, may so constitute them that they will become 
sinners of necessity, or may create and preserve them in 
holiness. Men are to be judged by their character as it 
now is not by the way in which they reached their 
present state. Dr. Charles Hodge says : " The Bible, 
the church, the mass of mankind, and the conscience, 
hold a man responsible for his character, no matter how 
that character was formed or whence it was derived." 
II. 252. But such bold views of sovereignty are not 
often entertained. Hodge held firmly to the Federal 
view of man's relation to God, and held that the cove- 
nant had its basis in nature. 



llo 



